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THE LOST CAUSE; 



% ^rity SoEt|eni l^istorj) of t|e Satar of t|e Coitfeknttd. 



COMPEISINO 



A FULL AND AUTBENTIO ACCOUNT OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE LATE SOUTHERN 
CONFEDERACY— THE CAMPAIGNS, BATTLES, INCIDENTS, AND ADVEN- 
TURES OF THE MOST GIGANTIC STRUGGLE OF THE 
WORLD'S HISTORY. 



DRAWN FROM OFFICIAL SOURCES, AND APPROVED BY THE MOST DIS- 
TINGUISHED CONFEDERATE LEADERS. 



BY 



EDWARD A. POLLARD, of Yieginia, 

NEW AND ENLARG-ED EDITION.^ 
WITH NUMEROUS SPLENDID STEEL PORTRAITS. 



SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION. 



fcto |orIi : ^ 

E. B. TREAT & CO., PUBLISHERS. 

BALTIMORE, Md. : J. 8. MORRO'W. ST. LOUIS. Mo : I. S. BEAINERD. 

NEW ORLEANS, La. : J. H. HUMMEL. LOUISVILLE, Kt. : F. L DIBBLE 

CUICAGO, III.: C. W. LILLEY. 

1867. 

« 

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^ 



^ 



PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. 



We take pleasure in presenting the Fifty-third Thousand — a new and enlarged 
edition — of the Lost Cause, with the assurance that it is the latest and most 
complete History of the War published. The entire work has been written since 
the close of the war, and is brought down to the release of President Davis (May, 
18G7). The value and importance of this work have also been greatly increased 
by the addition of a new and comprehensive map of the military operations during 
the war of 1861-5 (arranged expressly to accompany the present edition), giving 
all the important battle-fields (in colors), all the railroads, State and county lines, 
and making the most complete and reliable map of the kind published. 



/■ 



^ E. B. Treat & Co. 

New York, 1867. 



' ;t 



'/ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in tho year 1S6T, by 

E. B. TUEAT & CO., 

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for tho Southern District of New Tork. 



/ ^ 3 






INTKODUCTION TO THE NEW AND ENLAEGED EDITION. 



In presenting a second edition of "The Lost Cause," occasioned by the 
extraordinary and increasing demand for the work, the author has much 
to acknowledge and remember gratefully of the consideration he has 
obtained, and yet something to say of some companies of unfriendly 
critics. 

He can afford to wait the public judgment on a history which 
his publishers assure him has already obtained more than .half a million 
of readers. He is quite content with the success of his work ; he has 
DO disposition to expedite interest in it by unnecessary controversy ; but 
there has reached him from friendly quarters a certain protest agains 
his work, which deserves to be noticed, and makes the occasion for an 
explanation which he has sincerely sought. It is that his book is par- 
ticularly hostile to ex-President Davis, and manifests a general "prejudice" 
towards the civil rulers of the Confederacy. This notion, evidently 
honest with many who have been imposed upon by garbled extracts 
from " The Lost Cause," or downwright misrepresentations of the reviewer, 
has really concerned and mortified the author. It is time that the public 
was disabused of this notion, — which will best be done by a careful and 
candid reading of the book, — and that a proper line be drawn between 
just historical criticism and vile personal denunciation. 

While the author has obtained from many parts of the world, and 
from the most enlightened portions of Europe, assurances that his his- 
tory has done so much to clear and adorn the name of the South in 
the late war, and has been of signal advantage to the reputation of his 
country, it has pained him to see some peculiar criticisms in Southern 
journals, emanating invariably from a class that thinks it has not pro- 
perly been distinguished in the record of events. But he wrote this 
history iu allegiance to the truth, and in the interest of the feepla of 



INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION. 

the South, and not in behalf of any combination of mutual admirers. 
The consequence is, that a certain General does not think his figure 
quite large enough in the gallery of " The Lost Cause ; " another com- 
plains that there is omitted from its pages some cross-roads battle in the 
trans-Mississippi, which he thinks " the most important battle of the 
war ; " and a third declares that, with malice prepense against the dis- 
tinguished officer who figured on the occasion, the author has taken no 
notice of the capture of some tug in the North Carolina swash ! 

The author admits that there are events of the war, which the actors 
thought very important, that he has not detailed ; and he should consider 
himself utterly unworthy of the task of the historian, if he had attempted a 
record of the war by an enumeration of events, after the fashion of the 
modern almanac, having no regard to the proportion of incidents and the 
dramatic unity of the narrative. , 

But in the interest of truth, in the vindication and honoiir of the people 
of the South, in their service, wherein his pen has been enlisted, he does 
point with pride to the extraordinary favour with which the history "he has 
written under the title of "The Lost Cause" has been received by the 
first authorities in the critical literature of this country and of Europe. He 
is proud to know that leading English journals have declared that his 
book has put to rest forever the ghastly stories of Andersonville, and 
relieved the South from the charge of such atrocities. He is proud to 
know that it has obtained the honour of a translation into the Erench 
language, and found a sale in all the countries of Europe, and that edu- 
cated men have given it a prominent place in the historical literature 
of the age, and declare it the crowning vindication of the Southern cause. 

If the author of " The Lost Cause" had done nothing more than answer 
to the attention and satisfaction of the world the charge of " rebel barbari- 
ties," this alone should entitle him to the consideration and gratitude of the 
South. But he intends to make other claims on their regard ; and his pen 
has not yet stopped, and is now busy on another theme of Southern glory, 
in which the mass of his countrymen will find a new illumination of the 
Confederate name, and an arrangement of the ornaments of their arms, not 
unlikely to obtain the envy of their enemies and the regard of the world. 

Edwaed Alfred Pollard. 

Virginia, 186T. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The facts of the "War of the Confederates in America have been at the 
mercy of many temporary agents ; they have been either confounded with 
sensational rumours, or discoloured by vdolent prejudices : in this condition 
they are not only not History, but false schools of present public opinion. 
By composing a severely just account of the War on the basis of cotem- 
porary evidence — ascertaining and testing its facts, combining tliem in 
compact narrative, and illustrating them by careful analyses of the spirit 
of the press, not only in this country, but in Europe, the author aspires to 
place the history of the War above political misrepresentations, to draw it 
from disguises and concealments, and to make it complete in three depart- 
ments : the record of facts ; the accounts of public opinion existing with 
them ; and the lessons their context should convey or inspire. These 
three are the just elements of History. If the author succeeds in what he 
proposes, he will have no reason to boast that he has produced any great 
literary wonder ; but he will claim that he has made an important contri- 
bution to Truth, and done something to satisfy curiosity without " sensa- 
tion," and to form public opinion without violence. 

The au.thor desires to add an explanation of the plan of composition he 
has pursued in the work. It is impossible to write history as an intelligi- 
/-4)ie-whole, and to secure its ends, without preserving a certain dramatic 
imity in the narrative. It is by such unity that the lesson of history is 
conveyed, and its impression properly effected ; and to do this it becomes 
necessary to discard from the nurrative many small incidents, either epi- 
sodal in their nature, or of no importance in the logical chain of events. 
With this view, the author has paid but little attention to small occur- 
rences of the Avar which in no way affected its general fortunes, and has 
measured his accounts of battles and of other events by the actual extent 
of their influence on the grand issues of the contest. Instead of a con- 
fused chronological collection of events, he has sought to prepare for the 
reader a compact and logical narrative that will keep his attention close 
to the main movement of the story, and put instruction as to causes hand 
in hand with the information of events. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PlOB 

JEFFERSON DAVIS frontispiecb. 

A. H. STEPHENS 176 

J. P. BENJAMIN " 

HENRY A. WISE " 

J. C. BRECKENRIDGE " 

WM. L. YANCEY " 

J. M. MASON " 

JOHN SLIDELL " 

ROBERT E. LEE 338 

"STONEWALL" JACKSON 490 

P. T. BEAUREGARD " 

R. S. EWELL " 

A. P. HILL " 

J. LONGSTREET " 

A. S. JOHNSON « 

J. E. B. STUART « 

J. E. JOHNSTON 661 

BRAXTON BRAGG 714 

KIRBY SMITH " 

W. B. FORREST « 

LEONIDAS POLK " 

J. B. HOOD « 

W. J. HARDEE « 

JOHN MORGAN " 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEPw I. 

True value ot tl/e federal principle. — Historical examples. — Coleridge's prophecy.— Early 
Mission of the American Union. — IIow terminated. — The American system of Gov- 
ernment a mixed one. — The Colonial period. — First proposition of a General Con- 
gress.— Declaration of Independence.— Articles of Confederation.— Their occasion 
and origin.— Nature of the compact.— Peace-treaty of 1783. — Analysis of the nature 
and value of the Confederation. — How it was terminated. — The Convention of 

1787. — Character of the men who composed it. — Political idolatry in America. 

Parties in the Conventioo. — The question of Representation. — The novelty of the 
American Constitution the result of an accident. — State Rights. — Amendments to 
the Constitution. — Nature of the American Union. — Not a Consolidated nation- 
ality. — The Right of Secession. — The Union not the proclamation of a new civil 
polity. — Not a political revolution. — A convenience of the States, with no mission 
apart from the States. — The two political schools of America. — Consolidation and 
State Rights. — How the Slavery question was involved. — A sharp antithesis. — 
The Kentucky and Virginia resolutions. — "Webster and Calhoun, the anti-types of 
Northern and Southern statesmanship. — Mr. Calhoun's doctrines. — " Nullification " 
a Union-saving measure. — Its ingenuity and conservatism. — Calhoun's j.rofound 
statesmanship. — Injustice to his memory. — How the South has been injured by 
false party names 33 

CHAPTER II, 

The Federal principle ultimately fatal to the Union. — Other causes of disunion. — The 
sectional animosity. — The geograpliical line in the Union. — How the differences 
between North and South produced two distinct communities instead of rival parties 
within one body politic.^^he theory of a Political North and a Pohtical South. — 
Its early recognition in the Convention of 1787.— Declaration of Madison. — Mr, 
Pinckney's remarks. — How the same theory was involved in the Constitution. — 
fThe " Treaty" clause between North and South^The Union not the bond of diverse 
States, but the rough companionship of two peoples. — Gen. Sullivan's complaint to 
Washington. — The Slavery question, an incident of the sectional animosity. — 
Not an independent controversy, or a moral dispute. — Political history of Negro 
Slavery in the South. — How it become the subject of dispute. — The Hartfurd Con- 
vention. — The Missouri Line, the preliminary trace of disunion. — Declaration of 
Thomas JeiFerson.- Why the North defamed " the peculiar institution" of the South. 
— Great benefits of this institution, and its contributions to the world. — " Slavery," 



n CONTENTS. 

not the proper term for the institutions of labour in the ^uth. — The Slavery ques- 
tion significant only of a contest for political power.-^pifferences between the 
Northern and Southern populations. — Tlie anti-revolutionary period. — Traces of 
tlje modern " Yankee." — How Slavery established a peculiar civilization in the South. 
— Its bad and good effects summed up.-^Coarseness of Northern civilization. — No 
landed gentry in the North. — Scanty appearance of the Southern country. — The 
sentiments and manners of its people. — " American exaggeration," a peculiarity of 
the Northern mind. — Sobriety of the South. — How these qualities were disidayed in 
the Northern and Southern estimations of the Union. — " State Eights" the founda- 
tion of the moral dignity of the Union. — Calhoun's picture of the Union. — A noble 
vision never realized 45 

CHAPTER III. 

Material decline of the South in the Union. — Shifting of the numbers and enterprise of 
the country from the Southern to the Northern States. — Virginia's rank among the 
States at the time of the Revolution. — Commercial distress of the States after the 
Revolution. — How New England suffered. — The South then reckoned the seat of 
future empire. — The people and strength of America bearing Southwardly. — 
Emigration to the South. — Kentucky and the vales of Frankland. — Virginia's pros- 
perity, — Her early land system. — The Chesapeake. — Alexandria. — George Wash- 
ington's great commercial project. — Two pictures of Virginia: 1789 and 1829. — 

> An example of the decline of the South in material prosperity. — This decline not 
to be attributed to Slavery. — Its true causes.— Effect of the Louisiana purchase on 
the tides of emigration. — Unequal Federal legislation, as a cause of the sectional 
lapse of the South in the Union. — The key to the political history of America. — A 
great defect of the American Constitution.-^Population as an element of pros- 
perity and power. — How this was thrown into the Northern scale. — Two sectional 
measures. — Comparisons of Southern representation in Congress at the date of the 
Constitution and in the year 1860. — Sectional domination of the North. — A pro- 
tective Tariff. — " The Bill of abominations." — Senator Benton on the Tariff of 1828. 
-r^His retrospect of the prosperity of the South. — History of the American Tariffs. 
— Tariff of 1833, a deceitful Compromise. — Other measures of Northern aggrandize- 
ment.^^Ijigenuity of Northern avarice. — Why the South could not use her Demo- 
cratic alliance in the South to protect her interests. — This alliance one only for 
party purposes. — Its value. — Analysis of the Democratic Party in the North. — The 
South under the rule of a numerical majority. — Array of that majority on a sec- 
tional line necessarily fatal to the Union. — When and why the South should 
attempt disunion 54 

CHAPTER IV. 

The sectional equilibrium. — How disturbed in 1820. — Contest on the admission of 
Texas. — Compromise measures of 1850. — Declaration of a " Finality." — President 
Pierce's administration. — The Kansas-Nebraska bill. — Repeal of " The Missouri ^ 
Compromise." — Origin of the Republican party in the North. — Composition andr 
character of this Party.— Amazing progress of the Anti-slavery sentiment in the 
North. — New interpretation of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by Senator Douglas. — 
Intended to court the Anti-slavery sentiment. — Doctrine of " Non-intervention " 
in the Territories. — The "Dred Scott decision." — " The Kansas controversy." — The 
Lecompton Convention. — The Topeka Constitution. — President Buchanan's position 
and arguments. — Opposition of Senator Douglas. — His insincerity. — The Northern 
Democratic Party demoralized on the Slavery question. — Douglas' doctrine of 



CONTENTS. Vli 

" Popular Sovereignty." — "A short cut to all the ends of Black Eepublicanism." 
— Douglas as a demagogue. — The true issues in the Kansas controversy. — Impon- 
ant passages in the Congressional debate. — Settlement of the Kansas question. — 
Douglas' foundation of a new party. — His demagogueical appeals. — The true situa- 
tion. — Loss of the sectional equilibrium. — Serious temper of the South. — •' The 
John Brown raid." — Identity of John Brown's provisional constitution and or- 
dinances with the subsequent policy of the Republican Party. — Curious fore- 
shadow of Southern subjugation. — The descent on Ilarper's Ferry. — Capture and , 
execution of Brown. — His declaration. — Northern eympathy with him. — Alarming • 
tendency of the Republican Party to the Ultra-Abolition school. — " The Helper 
Book." — Sentiments of Sixty-eight Northern congressmen. — The conceit and in- 
solence of the North. — Affectation of Republicans that the Union was a concession 
to the South. — Hypocrisy of this party. — Indications of the coming catastrophe of 
disunion. — The presidential canvass of 1860. — Declarations of the Democratic 
Party. — The Charleston Convention. — Secession of the Southern delegates. — The 
different presidential tickets. — Election of Abraham Lincoln. — Analysis of theK^ 
vote. — How his election was a "sectional" triumpii. — Ominous importance of it 
in that view. — Arguments for sustaining Lincoln's election. — Seward's argument 
in the Senate. — Lincoln's election a geographical one. — How there was no longer 
protection for the South in the Union. — The Anti-slavery power compact and in- 
vincible. — Another apology for Lincoln's election. — Fallacy of regarding it as a 
transfer of the Administration in equal circumstances from the South to the North. 
— How the South had used its lease of political power. — Senator Hammond's tri- 
bute. — Power in the hands of the North equivalent to sectional despotism. — Tiie 
North " acting in mass." — The logical necessity of disunion 64 

CHAPTER V. 

Preparations of South Carolina to withdraw from the Union. — Passage of her Ordinance 
of Secession. — The Federal force in Charleston Harbour evacuates Fort Moultrie, 
and occupies Sumter. — Description of Fort Sumter. — How the Secession of South 
Carolina was entertained in tlie North. — The levity and inconsistency of the North 
with respect to this event. — Doctrine of Secession, and Northern precedents. — 
Record of Massachusetts. — Mr. Quincy's declaration in Congress. — A double justifi- 
cation of tlie withdrawal of tlie Southern States from the Union. — The right of Self- 
government. — Opinion of Mr. Lincoln. — Opinion of the New York " Tribune." — 
Opinion of Mr. Seward. — Tiie Secession question in the Cotton States. — Hesitation 
of Georgia. — Project of Alexander 11. Stephens. — Secession of all the Cotton States. 
— Seizure of Federal forts and arsenals. — Fort Pickens. — Senator Yulee's letter. — 
The scenes of Secession transferred to "Washington. — Resignation of Southern Sena- 
tors. — Jefferson Davis' farewell speech to the Federal Senate. — Senator Clay's bill V^ 
of indictment against the Republican party. — The Convention at Montgomery. — 
Constitution of the Confederate States. — Jefferson Davis chosen President. — His per- 
sonal history. — His character. — Why the public opinion about him was so divided ^ 
and contradictory. — Measures looking to pacification. — Three avenues through V^ 
which it was expected. — Early prospects of pacification in Congress. — The Republi- 
can "iiltimatum." — "The Crittenden compromise." — Measures of compromise and 
peace in Congress exclusively proposed by the South, and deliberately defeated by 
the North. — The Peace Conference. — Its failure. — Disposition of the Border Slave 
States. — How mistaken by the North. — The Virginia Convention. — How the Secession 
party gained in it. — The record of Virginia on the subject of State Rights. — Presi- 
dent Buchanan on the Secession question. — His weak character and undecided 



Till CONTENTb. 

policy. — How over-censured by the North. — Gen. Scott's intermeddling. — His im- 
practicable advice. — President Buchanan's perfidy in the Moultrie-Sumter affair. — 
His interview with the South Caroliua delegation. — A second deception. — The " Star 
of the West" affair. — The situation at the close of Buchanan's administration. — 
The country waiting fur the Signal of Combat 82 

CHAPTER VI. 

Character of Abraham Lincoln in history. — Absurd panegyric. — The personal and 
political life of the new President. — His journey to "Washington. — His speech at 
Philadelphia. — The flight from Harrisburg. — Alarm in Washington. — Military dis- 
play in the capital. — Ceremony of inauguration. — Criticism of Lincoln's address. — 
What the Republican party thought of it. — Serious pause at Washington. — State- 
ment of Horace Greeley. — How the Inaugural Address was received in the Seceded 
States. — Visit of Confederate Commissioners to Washington. — Seward's pledge to 
Judge Campbell. — The Commissioners deceived. — Military and Naval expeditions 
from New York. — Consultation of the Cabinet on the Sumter question. — Capt. 
Fox's visit to Charleston. — His project. — Objections of Gen. Scott. — Singular article 
in a New York journal. — Lincoln's, hesitation. — His final device. — Seward's game 
with the Commissioners. — The reduction of Fort Sumter. — Description of the Con- 
federate works for the reduction of Sumter. —Beauregard demands the surrender 
of the Fort. — The bombardment.— The fort on fire. — The Federal fleet takes no 
part in the fight. — The surrender. — Great excitement in the North. — Its true 
meaning. — The crusade against the South. — Dr. Tyng's exhortation. — Conduct of 
Northern Democrats. — Dickinson, Everett, and Cochrane. — President Lincoln's 
Proclamation. — His pacific protests to the Virginia Commissioners. — Secession of 
Virginia. — Discontent in the Western counties. — Second secessionary movement of 
the Southern States. — Violent acts of the Washington Administration. — Prepara- 
tions of the Confederate Government for War. — Rush of volunteers to arras. — Pre- 
sident Davis' estimate of the military necessity. — Removal of the seat of govern- 
ment to Richmond. — Activity of Virginia. — Robert E. Lee. — His attachment to the 
Union. — Why he joined the Confederate cause.— His speech in the State House at 
Richmond. — His organization of the military force of Virginia. — Military council 
in Richmond. — The early reputation of Lee 100 

CHAPTER VII. 

fn what sense Virginia seceded from the Union. — A new intei-pretation of the war of 
the Confederates. — Influence of Virginia on the other Border States. — Replies of 
these States to Lincoln's requisition for troops. — Secession of Tennessee, Arkansas, 
and North Carolina. — Seizure of Federal forts in North Carolina. — Movements in 
Virginia to secure the Gosport navy-yard and Harper's Ferry. — Their success. — 
Burning of Federal ships. — Attitude of Maryland. — The Baltimore riot. — Chase of 
Massachusetts soldiers. — Excitement in Baltimore. — Timid action of the Maryland 
Legislature. — Military despotism in Maryland. — Arrests in Baltimore.— A Reign of 
Terrour. — Light estimation of the war in the North. — Why the Federal Government 
sought to belittle the contest. — Lincoln's view of the war as a riot. — Seward'a 
Letter to the European Governments. — ^Early action of England and Franco with 
respect to the war. — Mr. Gregory's letter to the London Times. — Northern conceit 
about the war. — Prophecies of Northern journals. — A " Three months' war." — Ells- 
worth and Billy Wilson. — Martial rage in the North. — Imperfect appreciation of the 
Crisis in the South. — Early ideas of the war at Montgomery. — Secret history of the 
Confederate Constitution. — Southern opinion of Yankee soldiers. — What was 



CONTENTS. ]X 

thoaglit of "King Cotton." — Absurd theories about European recognition. — Lost 
Opportunities of the Confederate Government. — lilindness and littleness of mind 
North and South. — Reflection on public men in America. — Comparison of the re- 
sources of the Nortliern and Southern States. — Tlie Census of 1860, — Material ad- 
vantages of the North in the war. — Tlie question of subsistence. — Poverty of the 
South in the material and means of war. — How the Confederacy was supplied with 
small arms. — Peculiar advantages of tlie South in the war. — The military value 
of space. — Lessons of iiistory. — The success of the Southern Confedeiacy, a question 
only of resolution and endurance. — Only two possible causes of failure 120 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Mr. Lincoln's remark about the wolf — His designs upon Virginia. — Federal occupation 
of Alexandria. — Tragedy at the Marshall House. — Jackson, the martyr. — The affair 
of Great Bethel. — P^asy victory of the Confederates. — Exaggerations of Southern 
newspapers. — Apparent lull of hostilities. — New demonstrations of public opinion 
in the North. — Financial difficulties at Washington. — Popular clamour against 
President Lincoln and Gen. Scott. — Early indications of the real objects of the war. 
— The rights of humanity. — Virginia the great theatre of the war. — The Grand 
Army of the North. — Consultation of President Davis and Beauregard and Lee. — 
Beauregard's line of defence in Northern Virginia. — Sketch of General Beauregard. 
— His person and manners. — His opinion of the Yankee. — The Army of the Pctoinac 
and the Army of the Shenandoah. — Gen. Johnson's evacuation of Harper's Ferry. — 
"Stonewall" Jackson's first affair with the enemy. — Johnston amusing the 
enemy. — Affair of Rich Mountain. — McClellau's march into Northwestern Virginia. 
— Rosecrans' capture of the Confederate force on Rich Mountain. — Retreat of the 
Confederates from Laurel Hill. — Death of Gen. Garnett. — Extent of the disaster to 
the Confederates. — The "Grand Army" advancing on Manassas. — Johnston's move- 
ment to Beauregard's line. — The Battle of Manassas. — The affair of 18th July. — 
Longstreet's gallant defence. — Theatre of the great battle. — Beauregard's change 
of purpose, and his plan of battle. — The Stone Bridge. — The " Big Forest." — The 
Confederates flanked. — The day apparently lost for them. — The ecene at the 
-Senry House. — Timely arrival of Jackson. — Gen. Beauregard disconcerted. — Ride 
from the Hill to the Henry House. — The battle restored. — The bloody plateau. — 
Three stages in the battle. — The last effort of the enemy. — The strange flag. — 
Arrival of Kirby Smith. — The grand and final Charge. — Rout and panic of the 
enemy. — The fearful race to the Potomac. — Scenes of the retreat. — Failure of the 
Confederates to pursue, or to advance upon Washington, — A lost opportunity. . .134 

CHAPTER IX. 

The victory of Manassas, a misfortune for the Confederates. — Relaxation in Rich- 
mond. — Plotting among Confederate leaders for the Presidential succession. — 
Beauregard's political letter. — Active and elastic spirit of the North. — Resolution 
of the Federal Congress. — Energy of the Washington Administration. — Its immense 
preparations for the prosecution of the war. — The Missouri campaign. — The politics 
of Missouri. — Sterling Price and his party. — Imprudence and violence of the Federal 
authorities in Missouri. — Correspondence between Gens. Price and Harney. — Gov. 
Jackson's proclamation. — Military condition of Missouri. — Her heroic clioice. — 
Affair at Booneville. — Composition of the patriot army of Missouri. — Engagement 
at Carthage. — Confederate reinforcements under McCuUoch. — Disagreement be- 
tween Price and McCulloch. — Noble conduct of Price. — The Battle of Oak Hill. — 
MeCullooh surprised. — A fierce fight. — Death of Gen. Lyon. — The Federals de- 



X CONTENTS. 

feated.— -"Withflrawal of McCullocli's forces into Arkansas. — Operations in ITorthern 
Missouri. — Fremont in command of the Federal forces in Missouri. — His proclama- 
tion emancipating the slaves. — Its novelty and brutality. — Eepudiated at Washing- 
ton. — The siege of Lexington. — Its surrender to Price. — Gallantry of Col. Mulligan. 
— Critical position of Price. — Bis disappointment of Confederate succour. — His 
adroit retreat. — Missouri's ordinance of secession. — Fremont superseded. — Three 
military messengers in pursuit of him. — Excitement in his camp. — Price at Spring- 
field. — Close of the first campaign in Missouri. — The campaign, a chapter of 
wonders. — Missouri manhood. — The "Western Vu'ginia campaign. — Eesources and 
wealth of the Western section of Virginia. — Wise's command. — The enemy in the 
Kanawha Valley. — Wise's retreat to Lewisburg. — The Floyd brigade. — Advance of 
the joint forces towards the Gauley. — The atFair at Cross Lanes. — Movement of 
Eosecrans. — Affair of Cavnifax Ferry. — Floyd and Wise fall back towards Sewell 
Mountain. — An unfortunate Quarrel of Commanders. — Operations of Gen. Lee in 
Northwestern Virginia. — His failure at Cheat Mountain. — Col. Eust's part in the 
affiair. — Movement of Lee to the line of Lewisburg. — How Eosecrans escaped from 
him. — Engagement of the Greenbrier Eiver. — Gen. H. E. Jackson's success. — 
Failure of the Western Virginia campaign. — Gen. Lee's new command 152 

OHAPTEEX. 

The Congress in Washington. — Xew development of Northern policy. — Lincoln's po- 
litical discovery. — His remarkable measures of War. — An era of despotism. — 
Violent acts of Congress. — The seed of Abolition. — Suspension of the habeas 
corpus. — Curious apology for it. — Military arrests. — A "Confidential" document 
from McClellan. — Curious disposition of the Northern people to surrender their 
liberties. — Conservatism of the Confederate cause. — Lincoln's view of State 
"Neutrality" in the war. — Application of it to Kentucky. — The elections in Ken- 
tucky. — The Confederates anticipate the Federal occupation of Kentucky. — Zoili- 
coffer's command. — Polk's command. — Justification of the Confederate occupation. 
— Claims and designs of the Federals in Kentucky. — Polk's occupation of Columbus. 
— His profiler of withdrawal.— Arrests in Kentucky. — Despotic and brutal legisla- 
tion. — Distinguished refugees. — Breckinridge's address. — Early military movements 
in Kentucky. — Zollicofier's operations. — Buckner's occupation of Bowling Green. — 
The Battle of Belmont. — Movement of IT. S. Grant. — Gen. Pillow's command en- 
gaged at disadvantage. — The Confederates driven back. — Timely reinforcements. — 
Sudden conversion of a defeat into a victory. — Eetreat of Grant. — His official 
misrepresentation of the day. — Prospect of the war in the West 175 

C II A P T E E XI. 

The fickle public of the North. — Gen. Scott. — The clamour for McClellan. — His exalta- 
tion in the newspapers. — The theatrical and sensational mind of the North. — 
Advance of the Confederates towards the Potomac. — McClellan's designs. — The 
Confederates fall back to Centreville. — The Battle of Leesburg.— McClellan's move- 
ment on the Confederate left. — Evans' brigade. — Fortunate capture of a Federal 
courier. — The Federals cross the Potomac and occupy Ball's Bluff: — Splendid 
charge of the Confederates.— Death of Col. Baker.— The enemy driven into the 
Eiver. — An appalling spectacle of death. — Misrepresentations in Washington. — 
Morale of M'Clellan's army. — The aff"air at Dranesville.— Defeat of Stuart. — 
" Stonewall " Jackson's new cominand. — His expedition from Winchester. — Ter- 
rible suff'erings of his command. — His demonstration at Eath. — His movement to 
Eomney, and return to Winchester.— Close of the First Year's Campaign ia Vir- 



\/ 



CONTENTS. XI 

ginia, — Naval operations in 18G1. — The enemy's immense advantage in his navy. — 
Statistics of the Federal navy. — Improvidence of the Confederates in coast and 
river defences. — Secretary Mallory. — The Confederacy to lose all her sea-ports. — 
Two naval expeditions down the Carolina coast. — Engagement at llatteras Inlet. — 
An unequal combat. — The Port Royal expedition. — Capture of Port Royal. — Value 
of this Federal success. — The " Trent " affair. — Capture of Commissioners Mason 
and Slidell. — An English commander's protest. — Great indignation in England. — 
Pi-eparations there for war. — Conceit and exultation of the North. — Tributes and 
attentions to Capt. Wilkes. — Concern among the Confederates. — AVhat Richmond 
orators said. — Seward's correspondence with the British Government. — His col- 
lapse. — The last resort of demagogueism. — Disappointment of tlie Confederates in 
the termination of the " Trent " affair. — Earl Russell's declaration in Parliament. — 
Mr. Gregory's reply. — The Treaty of Paris and the Federal blockade 185 

CHAPTER XII. 

General character of the military events of the year 18G3. — The Confederate situation 
in Kentucky. — Gen. A. S. Johnston's command and position. — Battle of Fishing 
Creek. — The Confederate right in Kentucky. — Gen. Crittenden's command in ex- 
treme straits. — Difficulty in subsisting it.- — The decision to give battle to the 
enemy. — Zollicoffer'e brigade. — The contested hill. — Death of Zollicoffer. — Defeat 
of the Confederates. — Crittenden crosses the Cumberland. — His losses. — Import- 
ance of the disaster. — Designs of the enemy in "Western Kentucky. — Popular de- 
lusion as to Johnston's strength. — Hopelessness of his defence. — Official apathy in 
Richmond. — Beauregard's conference with Johnston. — The Tennessee and Cumber- 
land rivers. — The avenue to Nashville. — Grant's ascent of the Tennessee. — Cap- 
ture of Fort Henry. — Noble and gallant conduct of Gen. Tilgliman. — Battle of Fort 
Donelson. — Johnston's reasons for making a battle there. — Commands of Buckner, 
Pillow, and Floyd, — Site and strength of the fort. — Battle of the trenches. — ^En- 
gagement of the gunboats. — Two days' success of the Confederates. — Suffering of 
the troops from cold. — Exposure of the wounded. — Federal reinforcements. — The 
Confederate council of war. — Plan of attack, to extricate the garrison. — A fierce 
/ and terrible conflict. — The Federals forced back towards the Wynn's Ferry Road. 
— The opportunity of exit lost. — Gen. Buckner's explanation. — A commentary 
on military hesitation. — How the day was lost. — Nine hours of combat— Scenes 
\ on the battle-field. — Council of Confederate generals. — Gen. Pillow's proposition. — 
\ Literal report of the conversation of Gens. Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner. — A sur- 
render determined. — Escape of Floyd and Pillow. — Buckner's letter to Grant. — 
Johnston's movement to Nashville. — Excitement there. — Retreat of Johnston's 
command to Murfreesboro'. — Panic in Nusii ville.— Cai)ture of Roanoke Island by the 
enemy. — Bnrnside's expedition. — Gen. V/ise's estimate of the importance of Roan- 
oke Island. — His correspondence and interviews with Secretary Benjamin. — De- 
fences of the Island. — Naval engagement. — Coniniodore Lynch's squadron. — Land- 
ing of the enemy on the Island. — Defective reconnoissance of the Confederates. — 
Their works flanked. — The surrender. — Pursuit of the Confederate gunboats. — 
Extent of the disaster. — Censure of the Richmond authorities. — Benjamin accused 
by the Confederate Congress 198 

C H A P T E R X 1 1 1 . 

True causes of tlit Confederate disasters in the second year of the war. — The enemj'^s 
"Anaconda plan." — Rebukes to the vanity of the Confederates. — The sum of tlieir 



Xil CONTENTS. 

disasters. — ^Inauguration of the Permanent Government of the Confederate States.— 
Gloomy scene in Capitol Square. — President Davis' speech. — Commentary of a 
Richmond journal. — Causes of popular animation in the Confederacy. — Develop- 
ment of the enemy's design upon slavery. — History of the Anti-slavery measures 
of Lincoln's administration. — His early declaration of non-interference with sla- 
very. — Mr. Seward in 1860. — Lincoln's statement, March 4th, 18G1. — Diplomatic 
declaration, April, 1861. — Early affectations of Lincoln's Administration on tho 
subject of slavery. — M'Clellan's address. — M'Dowell's order. — Revocation of the 
emancipation measures of Fremont and Hunter. — First act of Anti-slavery legisla- 
tion at Washington. — Lovejoy's resolution. — The Anti-slavery clause in the Confis- 
cation Act. — Three notable measures of anti-slavery legislation. — Commencement 
of the Emancipation policy in the District of Columbia. — Explanation of the ascen- 
dancy of the Abolition party during the war. — The new Confederate Congress. — 
Its vigour. — The old Provisional Congress. — Its measures. — Its echoes to Federal 
legislation. — The sequestration law. — Silly and demagogical military legislation. — 
The " Sixty Days' furlough " law. — Alarm of Gen. Johnston. — Indisposition of 
Confederate volunteers to re-enlist. — The Conscription law of the Confederate 
States. — Its timely passage. — Its provisions and effect. — Other military acts of the 
Confederate Congress. — Re-organization of the army. — Destruction of Southern 
cotton and tt)bacco. — Authorization of partisan service. — Alternations of Confede- 
rate victory and defeat. — The Trans-Mississippi. — Battle of Elk Horn. — Van Dorn's 
command. — An obstinate fight. — Death of M'CuUoch. — The Confederate success 
indecisive and imperfect. — Reasons for Van Dorn's retreat. — Confederate designs 
upon Missouri abandoned for the present. — Transfer of Van Dorn's and Price's 
forces. — Naval fight in Hampton Roads. — The Virginia and the ?.Ionitor — Lack of 
naval enterprise in the Confederacy. — The privateer service. — Construction of the 
Virginia. — Confederate squadron in the James River. — Federal fleet off Fortress 
Monroe. — Fearful enterprise of the Virginia. — Sinking of the Cumberland. — Gal- 
lantry of her crew. — A thrilling ccene of heroic devotion. — Surrender of the Con- 
gress. — Frightful scenes of carnage. — Perfidious conduct of the enemy. — The 
Virginia engages the Minnesota.— Wonderful results of the first day's fight. — 
Second day's fight. — Apparition of the Monitor. — A singular scene of naval com- 
bat. — A drawn battle. — Excitement about iron vessels. — Discussion in the news- 
papers. — Addition of Ironclads to the Federal navy. — What M'Clellan thought of 
the Virginia. — Capture of Newbern, &c. — Objects of Burnside's expedition. — 
Branch's command at Newberu. — The Conftderate works on the Neuse River. — 
Retreat of Branch. — Federal occupation of Newbern. — Capture of Fort Macon. — 
The entire coast of North Carolina in possession of the enemy. — The sea-coast 
an unimportant part of the Confederate defences 214 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The new line of Confederate defence south of Nashville. — Its objects. — Co-operation 
of Johnston and Beauregard. — Capture of Island No. 10 by the enemy. — Gen. 
Polk's evacuation of Columbus. — M'Cown's occupation of Island No. 10 and 
New Madrid. — Condition of the defences at tliese places. — Pope moving on 
New Madrid. — Smallness of M'Cown's force. — Pope's strength in artillery. — 
His occupation of Point Pleasant. — A terrific bombardment. — Evacuation of New 
Madrid. — Effect of this movement. — Bombardment of Island No. 10. — Gallant 
defence of Pucker's battery. — Transfer of a portion of M'Cown's forces to Fort 
Pillow. — His preparations for retreat. — Gen. Mackall assigned to tho defence of 



CONTENTS. ' Xlll 

the Island. — Canal cut by the enemy across the Peninsula. — Two gunboats pass 
the island. — Mackall's surrender. — Wretched management of tlie evacuation of 
the Island. — Great loss of Confederate artillery. — The Battle of Shiloh. — Concen- 
tration of Confederate forces at Corinth. — Grant's lines at Pittsburg. — BueU 
advancing from Nashville. — Design of the Confederates to attack before the 
junction of these forces. — Unfortunate loss of a day in the march. — The Confed- 
erate plan of battle. — The enemy driven from his encampments. — Splendid and 
irresistible charge of the Confederates. — Tragical death of Gen. Johnston. — The 
Confederates press on in their career of victory. — Grant in the last extremity of 
defeat. — lie retreats to the banks of the Tennessee. — Beauregard's order for a 
cessation of the conflict. — A fatal halt. — Explanation of it. — Beauregard's great 
mistake. — Demoralization of his troops by plunder. — Buell's forces across the 
Tennessee. — The second day's action. — The Confederates fall back. — Overwhelm- 
ing force of the enemy. — Odds of the second day's battle. — The enemy does not 
attempt a pursuit. — A frightful sum of carnage. — Beauregard's claim of success. 
— Federal interpretation of the battle. — Exultation at Washington. — Death of 
Johnston, a serious loss to tlie Confederacy. — Sketch of his military life. — 
President Davis' tribute to the fallen hero. — His obsequies in. New Orleans 232 

CHAPTER XV. 

The military situation of the lower Mississippi. — The fall of New Orleans.— A long 
train of secret history of the Confederate Administration. — Sense of security in 
New Orleans. — Strange errour of the Richmond authorities. — Gen. Lovell's corres- 
pondence with the War Department. — Startling disclosures. — Naval structures for 
the defence of New Orleans. — Secretary Mallory's statement to the Confederate 
Congress. — Testimony of Gov. Moore, of Louisiana. — His interposition with the ship- 
builders. — The ironclads Mississippi and Louisiana. — Condition of the defences of 
New Orleans in April, 1862. — The river obstructed by a raft. — Farragut's fleet at 
the mouth of the Mississippi.— Festivity in New Orleans. — Bombardment of Forts 
Jackson and St. Philip. — Passage of the forts by the enemy's vessels. — The Con- 
federate gunboats all destroyed.— Confusion and panic in New Orleans. — Grea*"- 
(conflagration in the city. — A scene of terrible grandeur. — Lovell's evacuation of 
New Orleans. — Disorder in New Orleans. — Farragut's correspondence with Mayor 
Monroe. — Why the Mayor protracted the correspondence. — A new hope of de- 
fence. — Surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Philip. — Gen. Duncan's speech on 
the Levee. — Farragut's ultimatum. — Hoisting of the Stars and Stripes over New 
Orleans. — What the fall of New Orleans involved. — Note: — Gen. Lovell's reasons 
for evacuating New Orleans.— Rule of Butler in tlie conquered city. — Character 
and person of " The Tyrant of New Orleans." — " The woman-order."— Arrest of 
Mayor Monroe and of various citizens. — Butler on female secessionists. — His 
opinion of " she-adders."— Confiscation, fines, and plunder.— Butler's decoy for 
assassins. — The hanging of Mumford. — His speech on the gallows. — General ex- 
perience in the Confederacy of the enemy's atrocity. — New codes and methods 
of war.- — Progress of Federal cruelty 245 

CHAPTER XVI. 

More than one-third of the Federal forces operating against Richmond. — M'Clellan'8 
opinion of his army. — Its numerical strength. — Official statement of Confederate 
forces in North Virginia. — Lincoln's order of the 22d February. — M'Clellan's dis- 
sent. — Wlien Johnston determined to change his line on the Potomac. — His prepa 



nV CONTENTS. 

rations for retreat. — How it Avas accomplished. — M'Clellan's advance. — Discovery 
of Johnston's evacuation of Manassas and Centreville. — He crosses the Rappahan- 
nock and waits for tlie enemy. — He penetrates M'Clellans's designs, —Federal 
council of war at Fairfax Court-house. — Shifting of the scenes of war in Virginia. 
— The Battle of Kernstown. — How " Stonewall " Jackson came to fight this battle. 
— Great numerical superiourity of the enemy. — The contest at the Stone Fence. — 
Jackson falls back to Cedar Creek. — Magruder's line on the Peninsula. — A feai'ful 
crisis. — M'Clellan held in check by eleven thousand Confederates. — Outwitted again 
by Johnston. — Retreat of the Confederates up the Peninsula. — Strategic merit of the 
movement. — Battle of Williamsbarg. — Longstreet's division engaged. — Success of 
the Confederates. — M'Clellan's whole army in peril. — His flank movement on 
Johnston's retreat. — Engagement at Barhamsville. — The line of the Ohickahominy. 
Johnston's brilliant strategj.— Evacuation of Norfolk. — Destruction of the Virginia. 
— Her last challenge to the enemy. — A galling spectacle. — Commodore Tatnall 
orders her destruction. — A court of inquiry. — Naval engagement at Drewry's 
Blufl:". — A feeble barrier to Richmond. — Repulse of the Federal fleet. — What it 
proved. — M'Clellan's investment of the line of the Chickahominy. — Defences of 
Richmond. — Scenes around the Federal capital. — Alarm and excitement of its 
people. — The exodus from Richmond. — Public meeting in the City Hall. — Noble 
resolution of the Legislature of Virginia. — Re-animation of the people and the 
authorities. — President Davis' early opinion of the effect of the fall of Richmond. 
— Appeals of the Richmond press. — Jackson's campaign in the Valley of Virginia. — 
Jackson determines on the aggressive. — Disposition of the Federal forces west of 
the Blue Ridge. — Affair at M'Dowell. — Jackson deceives Banks — Surprises his 
rear-guard at Front Royal. — Banks' race to Winchester. — Scenes of retreat through 
Winchester. — Banks' quick time to the Potomac. — Extent of Jackson's success. — 
Fruits of two days' operations of the Confederates. — Jackson passes between the 
columns of Fremont and Shields. — Death of Turner Ashby. — Jackson's tribute to 
him. — Battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic— E well defeats Fremont. — The 
field of Port Republic. — Ewell's arrival saves the day. — Critical and splendid 
action of two Virginia regiments. — Close of tlie Valley campaign. — Jackson's 
almost marvellous success. — His halt at Weyer's Cave 261 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The tardiness of McClellan. — How the Confederates availed themselves of it. — Their 
concentration of forces at Richmond. — Strength of these forces. — Position of the 
two armies. — The Chickahominy and the roads crossing it. — Battle of " Seven 
Pines." — Failure of Gen. linger to attack. — Gallant charge of the troops of Long- 
street and Hill. — Gen. Johnston wounded. — The affair of the next day. — Important 
change of military command. — Secret history of the attempt to limit the military 
power of President Davis. — A plan of Confederate politicians. — Plot against the 
President's power. — The new afiice ot Commanding-general of the Confederates. — 
How made nominal by President Davis. — Gen. Robert E. Lee appointed to this 
office. — His appearance and manners. — The Seven Days' Battles around Richmond. — 
Lee's plan of operations. — Jackson's withdrawal from the Valley masked. — Battles 
of Mechanicsville and Beaver Dam. — Repulse of the Conftderates at Beaver Dam 
Creek. — Jackson flanks the enemy's position. — McClellan's retreat to Gaines' 
MiUs. — Its strategic design. — Extraordinary strength of the new position. — Gen. 
Lee waiting for the great battle. — Battle of Gaines' Milh. — Heroic fight of Hill's 
division. — The enemy gains ground. — An urgent message to Longstreet. — Jackson 



CONTENTS. XV 

appears, — Final charge of the day. — Its -fierce grandeur. — Victory of the Confed- 
erates. — McClellan retreats towards the James River. — Faihire of Magruder and 
Huger to intercept him. — The great errour which they committed. — Battle oi 
Savage Station. — McClellan crosses White Oak Swamp. — Failure of Huger's attack. 
— Another opportunity lost. — Battle of Frazier's Farm. — Hill and Longstreet'a 
troops only engaged. — Battle of Malvern Hill. — McClellan's position on the Hill. — 
His numerous artillery. — The attack of the Confederate left not supported. — 
Magruder's impetuous and desperate charge. — Tlie. sublime scenery of the contest. 
— Failure of the attack. — McClellan continues his retreat to Harrison's Landing. — 
Fruits of the Confederate success. — Gen. Lee's explanation of McClellan's escape. — 
Estimate of the victory by Lee and Stonewall Jackson. — Richmond erect and 
exultant 278 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Eflfect of McClellan's defeat in the North. — Organization of another Federal army 
under Gen. Pope. — Political significance of Pope's appointment. — New measures of 
violence in the war. — McClellan's ideas of the conduct of the war. — His " Harri- 
son-Bar Letter." — Divisions of sentiment in the North as to the character and 
measures of the war. — Position of the Democratic party. — The Radical in Congress. 
— Their Anti-slavery design. — Their theory of revenge upon the South. — Cardinal 
errour of this political school. — Declaration of Wendell Phillips. — System of 
spoliation and disfranchisement in the South. — Gen. Pope's address to his army in 
Virginia. — His war upon non-combatants. — Legalization of plunder. — Irruption of 
the Northern spoilsmen into Virginia. — Pope's military lines. — Gen. Lee between 
two forces — He sends Jack'^on against Pope. — He threatens McClellan's communi- 
cations. — Battle of Cedar Run. — Banks again deceived by Jackson. — A rapid and 
severe engagement. — Gen. Lee moves out to the lines of the Rappahannock. — Ad- 
venturous movement of Jackson to reach Pope's rear. — His perilous position. — 
He is apparently in the jaws of destruction. — The affair of Manassas and Bristoe 
Station. — The second battle of Manassas. — Longstreet's march to reinforce Jackson. 
— His^passage of Thoroughfare Gap. — His timely and critical arrival on the field 
of battle. — A close contest. — Fighting at ten baces. — The battle of the first day 
■'not decisive. — Disposition of the two armies for the great contest of the second 
day. — Jackson at close quarters. — He drives tlie enemy. — The whole Confederate 
line of battle advancing. — A sublime spectacle. — Scenes on the banks of Bull Run. 
y — Pope retreats to Centreville and thence towards Washington. — Jackson strike."? 
him again. — Engagement at Ox Hill. — Pope's immense losses. — His absurd claim 
of victory. — Ludicrous correspondence between Pope and Ilalleck. — Rapid and 
brilliant change in the fortunes of the Confederacy. — The war transferred from the 
interiour to the frontier. — Alarm in the North. — Popularity in the Confederacy of 
an offensive war. — A true statement of Gen. Lee's designs in crossing the Upper 
Potomac and invading Maryland. — Why he did not move upon Washington and 
Alexandria. — His proclnmation at Frederick. — Weak response of tlie Marylanders. 
— Explanation of this. — Capture of Harper's Ferry, &c. — How Jackson invested it. 
— M'Clellan at the head of the Federal army. — His inactivity. — He becomes 
acquainted with Lee's plans by a curious accident. — He presses forward to relieve 
Harper's Ferry. — Fight in Boonesboro' Gap. — Gen. Lee retires to Sharpsborg. — 
Meanwhile Jackson completes the reduction of Harper's Ferry. — Battle of Sharps- 
burg. — Comparative stfength of the two armies. — Fluctuation of the tide of 
battle on the Confederate left. — Repulse of the enemy. — The Confederate centre ia 



XVI CONTENTS. 

broken and recovers. — The enemy gets possession of the bridge over the Antietam, 
— The day closes with the enemy repulsed at all points, and a victory for the Con- 
federates. — Why Gen. Lee did not renew the battle the next day. — Why lie 
retreated. — M'Clellan's claim of victory. — How it was an afterthought. — Lee'a 
army recruiting in Virginia 296 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Western theatre of the war. — Valley of the Mississippi. — Evacuation of Corinth. — 
Important objects of the movement. — Its success. — The Ilalleck-Pope dispatch. — 
An enormous falsehood. — Gen. Beanrogard's comments on it. — Capture of Memphis. 
— An unequal fight on the river. — Bombardment of Vicksburg. — Great importance 
of this point, — Preparations for its defence by Van Dorn. — The ironclad Arkansas. 
— She runs the gauntlet of the enemy's fleet. — Thrilling scene of the adventure. 
— Failure of the first attempt of the enemy upon Vicksburg. — Engagement at 
Baton Rouge. — Success of Breckinridge's attack. — He waits for the iron-clad 
Ai'kansas. — She becomes unmanageable and is fired by her crew. — Withdrawal of 
Breckinridge from Baton Rouge. — Confederate occupation of Port Hudson. — The 
Kentucky campaign. — Gen. Bragg in command of the Confederate army in the 
"West. — How Gen. Beauregard was retired. — Bragg's plan of operations against 
Kentucky. — Morgan's raid. — Disposition of the Federal forces west of the Alle- 
ghany Mountains. — Co-operation of Kirby Smith with Bragg's column. — Battle of 
Richmond. — Kirby Smith in a position to threaten both Cincinnati and Louisville. — 
Bragg's movement to intercept Buell. — The latter concentrating at Bowling Green. 
— Great success of Bragg's movements so far. — His boastful dispatch to Richmond. 
— His political object in invading Kentucky. — His proclamation at Glasgow. — Sur- 
render of the Federal garrison at Mumfordsville. — Bragg's whole army between 
Nashville and Louisville. — His splendid opportunity. — He does not use it. — He 
permits Buell to pass to Louisville without a battle. — His weak excuse for a fatal 
errour — The Federals now able to resume the offensive in Kentucky. — Bragg'a 
uncertain movements. — His disarranged plan of battle. — Gen. Polk's disobedience 
of orders. — Battle of Perryville. — Bragg's unfortunate distribution of forces. — 
Misapprehension of Kirby Smith. — Withers' division not in the fight. — The enemy 
driven. — Arrival of another of his corps upon the field. — Bragg retires upon 
Bryantsville. — He determines to evacuate Kentucky. — Retreat through Cumberland 
Gap. — Disappointment at Richmond. — Errours of the Kentucky campaign. — How 
far it was a Confederate success. — Its large captures. — North Alabama and Middle 
Tennessee redeemed. — Bragg in front of Nashville. — Operations in the Southwest. 
— Battle of Corinth. — Movements of Van Dorn and Price. — The afiair of luka. — 
Van Dorn's reasons for attacking Corinth. — Gallant and impetuous charge of Price's 
troops. — The second day's fight. — Mismanagement of the attack on tlie enemy's 
•^vrorks. — Terrible slaughter at College Hill. — Tiie Confederates repulsed. — Afiair 
on the Hatchie River. — Van Dorn's retreat. — Review of the summer and autumn 
campaigns of 18fi2. — Glory of the Confederate arms.^Reflection of the London 
Times on the " New Nationality." 319 

CHAPTER XX. 

The two main theatres of the war. — Operations in Virginia. — Battle of Fredericksburg. 
— Preliminary movements of the two armies. — Expedition of Stuart's cavalry into 
Pennsylvania. — Removal of M'Clellan. — The true reasons for it. — Gen. Burnside's 
"On to Richmond." — His movement towards Fredericksburg. — The surrender of 



CONTENTS. XVli 

the town demanded. — It is abandoned by the citizen-population. — Sorrow ful pcenes. 
— Burnside forces the passage of the Rappalitinnock. — The Confederate position, — 
Burnside's hope to surprise Gen. Lee. — How disappointed. — The Confederate line 
of battle. — The attack on the Confederate right. — Young Pelliam's gallantry. — 
The Confederate right broken. — The battle restored. — Interest of the field on llie 
left. — The attack on Marye's and Willis' IIUls. — Gallantry of the Federals. — They 
make six attacks. — A terrible scene of carnage. — Burnside's army driven into 
Fredericksburg.— His appalling extremity. — Expectations in Eichmond of the des- 
truction of his army. — He escapes across the Rappahannock. — Gen. Le^'s ovi'a 
explanation of his failure to follow up his victory. — Comparative losses in the 
battle. — Death of Gens. Gregg and Cobb. — Gen. Lee's sentiment with respect to 
the objects of the war. — Operations in Tennessee. — Battle of Murfreesboro'. — The 
situation in the West. — The lines in Tennessee and Mississippi. — Rosecrana' advance 
from Nashville. — Conflicting statements of his force. — Position of Gen. Bragg's 
army around Murfreesboro'. — Bragg anticipates the Federal attack. — Hardee com- 
mences the battle. — He drives the entire right wing of the Federals. — Desperate 
situation of Rosecrans. — His sang-froid. — He developes a new line of battle. — 
The Confederates renew the attack. — How Bragg lost an opportunity. — Splendid 
charge of the Confederates. — The day undecided, but the advantage witli the Con- 
federates. — Bragg's "Happy New-Year." — Breckinridge attempts to dislodge the 
enemy. — "The bloody crossing of Stone River." — Repube of Breckinridge. — Why 
Bragg determined to retreat. — The results of tiie Buttle of Murfreesboro' in fiivonr 
of the Confederates. — A peculiarity of Gen. Bragg. — His eloquent tribute to the 
private soldier of the Confederacy. — Operations in the Trans-Mississippi. — The cam- 
l)aign West of the Mississippi feeble and irregular. — Gen. Hindman's command. — 
His extravagant Address to his Soldiers. — Battle of Prairie Grove. — Hindman's first 
success and unfortunate delay. — His blunders and extraordinary retreat. — Con- 
dition of the Trans-Mississippi oountrj-. — Hindman's "Government ad Interim." — 
His despotic orders. — An extraordinary list of outrages. — Virtue and fidelity of 
the Confederate States West of the Mississippi River ' 83S 

X' CHAPTER XXI. 

Revie^ of political questions in the war. — The thread of Anti-slavery legislation.— 
Pi^esident Lincoln's hesitation. — The oj>position to his administration. — Scheme of 
compensated emancipation. — How visionary. — Mr. Lincoln's motives in suggesting 
it. — -The President and the Chicago Deputation. — His characteristic discoui-se on 
slavery. — His reference to the Pope's Bull against the Comet. — Political import.moe 
of the battle of Sharpsburg. — The mask dropped. — The Proclamation of Emancipa- 
tion. — Misrepresentations of it. — An act of malice towards the master, not one of 
mercy to the slave. — Pretence of " military necessity." — Dishonour of the plea.— 
Proof of its falsehood. — Effect of the Emanoi[iation Proclamation on the Confeder- 
ates. — President Davis' commentary. — Spirit of the press and people of the Con- 
federacy.— Effect of the proclamation in the North. — Analysis of the Northern 
elections of 18G2. — The Democratic protest against President Lincoln's adininistra- ' 
tion. — Speech of Mr. Cox in the Federal Congress. — Supposed design of " recon- 
struction " of the Union. — How the idea was treated in Richmond. — Savage de- 
nunciations of it. — Vice-President Stephens' Declaration of Independence or death, 
— ^]Military operations jn the early months of 1863. — Generid cliaracter of the war 
in the winter season. — The recapture of Galveston by the Confederates. — Fight 
between the Cottonboats and the Federal Fleet. — The Harriet Lane captured. — The 



XVni CONTENTS. 

other Federal vessels surrender, but escape under white flags. — Renewed attempt? 
against Vicksburg. — Shameful failure of Sherman'a expedition. — Third attempt 
upon Vicksburg made by Gen. Grant. — Its failure. — Attempt of Farragut's fleet to 
run past Fort Hudson. — Destruction of the Mississippi. — Capture of Arkansas Post 
by the Federals. — Its importance. — Attack of an iron-clad fleet upon Charleston.- - 
Trial between iron-clads and artillery. — Combat of the Keokuk and Fort Sumter. — • 
Complete triumph of the Confederates. — The prestige of " Monitors " destroyed. .S5G 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Military situation in the early months of 1863. — Early resumption of the campaign in 
Virginia. — The new Federal favourite, " Fighting Joe Hooker." — The Battle of 
Chancellorsville. — Hooker's plan of operations. — His flaming address to his troops. 
— Critical situation of Gen. Lee. — Surrounded by an enemy more than threefold 
his numbers. — Calmness and self-possession of Lee. — His deliberate dispositions for 
attack. — The flank-march of Stonewall Jackson. — How he emerged from "the 
Wilderness." — Fall of Stonewall Jackson. — The impetus of the Confederate attack 
ceases. — How Gen. Lee received the news of Jackson's fall. — The battle in front of 
Chancellorsville. — Hooker's army crippled and driven. — Sedgwick's advance from 
Fredericksburg. — It arrests Lee's pursuit of Hooker. — The fight near Salem Church. 
— Sedgwick's force routed. — Hooker retreats across the river. — His terrible los- 
ses. — Chancellorsville, the masterpiece of Lee's military life. — Reflections on the 
victory. — Startling oflicial developments as to the numbers of Confederate armies. 
— Particulars of the death of Jackson. — Exact report of his last words. — Character 
of Stonewall Jackson. — His great ambition. — Early misconceptions of the man. — 
How he was ridiculed. — His difference with President Davis. — His resignation sent 
in, but recalled. — Jackson's military career. — His genius. — His piety. — His epicene 
nature. — Personal appearance of the hero. — What Virginia owes to his memory, .oTO 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Vicksburg, the second prize of the war. — Gen. Grant. — "What his persistency was 
worth. — His new scheme of attack. — Two parts of the enterprise. — Porter's gun- 
boats run the batteries. — Grant's march from Milliken's Bend. — Blindness of Gen. 
Pemberton at Vicksburg. — Antecedents and' character of this commander. — His 
extreme incompetency. — President Davis blamed. — His caprice and obstinacy. — 
Grant crosses the Mississippi and moves towards Port Gibson. — Gen. Johnston's 
telegram to Pemberton. — Critical opportunity of the campaign. — Pemberton 
refuses to use it, and disregards Johnston's despatch. — Battle of Port Gibson. — 
Extraordinary valour of Bowen's command. — Grant turns Grand Gulf and moves 
upon Jackson. — Gen. Johnston's arrival at Jackson. — Situation and strength of the 
Confederate forces. — Evacuation of Jackson. — Johnston offers a second op- 
portunity of attack to Pemberton. — The latter disobeys the order and commits a 
fatal error. — Sherman's incendiary record in Jackson. — His use of the fire-brand. 
— Grant forces battle upon Pemberton. — Battle of Baker's Creek. — Tremendous 
exertions of Stevenson's division. — Gen. Loring fails to support him, remains in- 
active, and is cut off" in the retreat. — Pemberton's new position upon the Big Black. 
— ^Its strength. — It is shamefully abandoned. — Disgraceful retreat of Pemberton's 
army. — The fate of Vicksburg virtually decided at the Big Black. — Gen. John- 
ston orders the evacuation of Vicksburg. — Pemberton entrapped there. — Siege and 
surrender of Vicksburg. — Confidence of the garrison restored. — Prospect ol relief 
fi'om Johnston. — ^How it was visionary. — Two assaults of the enemy repulsed.— 



CONTENTS. XIX 

Painful operations of siege. — Sufferings of the garrison. — Jolinston lias some hope 
of extricating the garrison. — Taylor's attack and repulse at Milliken's Bend. — 
Pemherton's despatch to Johnston. — The reply : " Something may yet be done to 
save Vicksburg." — Johnston prepares to attack on 7th July. — Pemberton surrenders 
on Fourth of July. — His conference with Grant. — A terrible day's work. — Extent 
of the disaster to the Confederate cause. — Surrender of Port Hudson. — Other events 
in the region of the Mississippi connected with the Fall of Vicksburg. — Operations 
in th-e Trans-Mississippi. — Battle of Helena. — Object of Gen. Holmes' movement on 
Helena. — An extraordinary march. — An extraordinary council of war. — Gen. 
Price protests against an attack. — He is ordered to take " Graveyard " fort. — He 
succeeds. — The other attacks fail. — Disastrous retreat of Gen. Holmes. — The cam- 
paign in Lower Louisiana. — Gen. Taylor's capture of Brashear City and its forts* — 
His operations in the Lafourche country. — His successes neutralized by the fall of 
Vicksburg and Port Hudson. — Banks returns to New Orleans and the enemy holds 
the entire line of the Mississippi 385 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Favourable aspects of Confederate affairs after the battle of Chancellorsville. — Alter- 
native of campaigns in Richmond. — Virginia and Tennessee. — What decided the 
campaign into Pennsylvania. — Reorganization of the Army of Northern Virginia. — 
Its grand preparations on the Plains of Culpepper. — Ewell's movement upon Win-. 
Chester. — His captures. — Order of Lee's march to the Potomac. — Hooker out- 
generalled and blinded. — Lee's march to Gettysburg, a master-piece of strategy. — 
Conduct of his troops in the enemy's territory. — Gen- Lee abstains from " retalia- 
tion." — Comment of the Richmond " Examiner." — Gen. Hooker relieved, and Meade 
put in command of the Federal army. — Alarm in the North. — Meade marches 
towards Gettysburg. — The battle of Gettysbui-g. — A Confederate victory the first 
day. — How it was not improved. — A great errour. — The critical heights of Gettys- 
burg taken by the enemy. — Cemetery Ridge. — " Round Top." — The Confederate 
line of battle. — Why Gen. Lee determined to attack. — Action of the second day. — 
Longstreet's desperate engagement. — Temporary possession of " Round Top." — 
Successes on the Confederate left. — Action of the third day. — An ominous silence. 
—^Sudden and terrible cannonade. — Heroic charge of Pickett's division. — Sublime 
devotion of the Virginians. — They take the key of the enemy's position. — The 
sl\out of victory. — Pettigrew's support fails. — The day lost. — Gen. Lee rallying 
hii troops. — His subsequent retreat to the Potomac. — Success of the retreat. — He 
retires to the line of the Rapidan. — Gettysburg the climacteric of the Southern 
Confederacy. — History of the peace mission of Vice-President Stephens as connected 
therewith. — An ostensible letter of President Davis. — How the mission was re- 
pulsed, — The honourable position of the Confederate President 401 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Gettysburg and Vicksburg twin disasters for the Confederntes. — Their effect on the 
Confederate currency. — The financial system of the Southern Confederacy. — The 
modern system of public credits an encouragement to Avar. — Review of financial 
experiments in the modern wars of Europe. — The three conspicuous examples of 
Great Britain, France and Russia.— The great financial errour in the America^ 
war. — IIow a bank of exchequer would have operated in the war. — The rule of 
reflux in currency, — ^Brief statement of financial condition of North and South at 
close of the war. — Suspension of the Southern banks in the first year of the waj 



XX CONTENTS. 

— Amount of specie in the South at the commencement of the war.-^Principa 
measures of Confederate finance. — How the Soutliern hanks became involved. — 
Practical results of their loan to the Government. — " Making money hy machinery." 
— Sales of Confederate bonds. — Special occasions for this investment. — Unequal to 
relieve the currency. — Eates of depreciation of the Confederate money. — Rich- 
mond, the centre of finance and trade. — Gold not a measure of value in the 
Confederacy. — Reasons for its extraordinary appreciation there. — Comparison of 
Confederate money with the Continental currency in the Revolution of 1776. — 
Two capital causes of the depreciation of the Confederate money. — Tlie influence 
of speculation. — How tlie engrossers managed in Richmond. — Summary of the 
mismanagement of the Confederate finances 415 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

I'he new attempt upon Fort Sumter and Charleston. — Gen. Glllmore's command. — His 
plan of operations. — What was proposed by the reduction of the works on Morris 
Island. — A base of operations on Folly Island. — How Gen. Beauregard was blinded 
and deceived. — Forty-seven guns of the enemy unmasked. — The assault on Fort 
"Wagner. — Gallantry of a Connecticut regiment.' — The assault repulsed. — Gen. 
Beauregard's plans. — His object in holding Morris Island. — Second assault on Fort 
"Wagner in conjunction with Dahlgren's fleet. — The bombardment of Fort Wagner. 
• — Profound and significant silence of the garrison. — Advance of the storming 
column. — Its rep'jlse. — Terrible scenes of cariljige. — Siege operations. — Appeals to 
the South Carolina planters, and their indiflerence. — Gillmore prepares to bombard 
and destroy Chaneston. — "The Greek Fire." — "The Swamp Angel." — Gillmore"'a 
notice of bombardment. — Sharp and memorable reply of Gen. Beaungard.— 
Cowardly rejoicings in the North. — The bombardment a failure. — Attempted 
demolition of Fort Sumter. — How far the fort was injured by the bombardment. — 
Gillmore announces its reduction. — The announcement false and absurd. — Pro- 
gress of the siege operations against Fort Wagner. — A terrific fire opened upon 
it. — Surpassing grandeur of the scene. — Gillmore plans another assault upon the 
fort. — The Confederates evacuate it and Morris Island. — What Gen. Beauregard 
accomplished by the retention of Morris Island for two months. — The Island not 
the key to Charleston. — Admiral Dahlgren refuses to ascend the harbour with hia 
iron-clads. — He summons Fort Sumter to surrender. — Beauregard's reply. — A 
boat-attack on the Fort. — Its disastrous repulse. — The enemy's operations against 
Charleston degenerate into a chronic and fruitless bombardment. — Disappoint- 
ment in the North-. 429 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

General Joseph E. Johnston's prophecy of the fate of Tennessee. — Character and ex- 
traordinary foresight of tliis commander. — How Tennessee was sacrificed to the 
attempted defence of Vicksburg.- — Bragg's army flanked at Hoover's Gap. — It 
commences a retreat to Chattanooga. — Expedition of John Morgan. — How it 
afi"ected the Western campaign and embarrassed Burnside. — Morgan's circuit 
through Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. — What he accomplished. — His anxiety for 
retreat. — Cut oft" on the Ohio River. — Terrible scenes in the attempt to swim the 
river. — Capture of Morgan and the bulk of his command. — Cruel and infamous 
treatment of the distinguished captive and his officers. — Surrender of Cumberland 
Gap. — President Davis' commentary on this event-Recoil of serious charges upon 
the Richmond administration. — Burnside's invasion of East Tennessee. — Gen, 



CONTENTS. XXJ 

Frazier in command at Cumberland Gap. — His correspondence with Gen. Buckner. 
— The defences of the Gap imperfect. — Insufficiency of tlie garrison. — Why Gen. 
Frazior surrendered it. — Two lines of operations now opened against Chattanooga. 
—The Battle of Chickamauga. — Topography of the country around Chattanooga. — ■ 
Movements of Rosecrans. — He threatens a Hank movement towards Rome. — Th€» 
Confederates evacuate Chattanooga. — Bragg'snew line from Lee's and Gordon's Milla 
to Lafayette. — Longstreet's corps on the way from Virginia to reinforce him. — 
Rosecrans pursues the Confederates, and expos,es himself in detail. — The lost 
opportunity in M'Lenore's Cove. — Lines of Rosecrans' advance. — Bragg resolves 
to advance and attack him. — Arrival of Longstreet with five brigades.— The 
enemy anticipates a flank movement by Bragg. — A severe encounter. — Cleburne's 
gallant charge. — The Confederate plan of battle for the next day. — Gen. Polk to 
open the action. — A strange delay. — A singular breakfast scene. — Gen. Bragg 
furious. — The Confederate right wing beaten back. — Critical condition of the 
field. — Long.street's attack. — lie saves the day. — The enemy utterly routed. — 
Chickamauga a brilliant but unproductive victory 439 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Conference of Gens. Bragg and Longstreet the day after the battle of Chickamauga. 
— Longstreet's plan of campaign north of the Tennessee River. — "Why Gen. Bragg 
declined it. — His investment of Chattanooga. — He cuts ofl:' the enemy's supplies. 
— He hopes to starve the garrison into surrender. — Reorganization of the Federal 
armies in the west. — Gen. Grant's new and large command, — His first task to 
relieve Thomas in Chattanooga. — His successful lodgment on the south side of the 
Tennessee River. — Surprise of Longstreet. — The Confederates retreat to Lookout 
Mountain. — Longstreet makes a night attack on the enemy's new position, but is 
repulsed. — The enemy accomplishes the relief of Chattanooga. — Detachment of 
Longstreet from Bragg's i'ront to operate against Ivnoxville. — This unfortunate 
movement the work of President Davis. — Military pragmatism and vanity of the 
Confederate president. — Grant determines to take the offensive. — The Battle of 
Missionary Ridge. — Extraordinary strength of the Confederate position. — Two at- 
tacks repulsed. — General advance of the Federal lines to the crest of Missionary 
Ridge. — Audacity of the movement. — Bad conduct of the Confederate troops. — A 
sjiameful panic — Causes of the extraordinary misconduct of Bragg's army. — It 
f^lls back to Dalton. — Longstreet's expedition against Ivnoxville. — His pursuit of 
Burnside. — Ilis unsuccessful assault on Fort Sanders at Ivnoxville. — He retreats to 
Roge^sville, is cut off from Virginia, and spends the winter in North-eastern Ten- 
nessee. — Operations in Virginia in the Fall of 1863. — Lee attempts to flank Meade 
and get between him and Washington. — An extraordinary adventure of Stuart's 
cavalry. — Meade retreats to and beyond Bull Run. — Failure of Lee's flank move- 
ment. — Incidents of success for the Confederates. — Lee retires to the Rappahan- 
nock. — Aff'air of Rappahannock Bridge. — Affair of Germania Ford.- — Desultory 
operations between Lee's lines and East Tennessee. — Averill's raid. — Close of the 
campaign of 1863 in Virginia 453 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

X Effect of the Federal successes of 18G3 on the Northern elections. — Estimate in the 
Richmond newspapers of the Democratic alliance in the North. — Losses of the 
Democratic party in the elections of 18G3. — President Lincoln's triumph. — His 
administration strengthened. — It ventures to new lengths. — Arrest of Mr. Val- 



XXU CONTENTS. 

landigliam. — Protests of the Democratic Party. — Their worthless and ridiculons 
character. — i^ew and vigorous measures of war at Washington. — Scarcity of men 
and of food, the two concerns at Eichmond. — Meagre results of the Couscriotiox 
law. — An alarming statement from the Confederate Secretary of "War. — Diminution 
of subsistence in the Confederacy. — Suffering among the people and army. — His- 
tory of the Confederate commissariat, — Report of the meat supplies in the Con- 
iederacy in January, 1862. — Effect of the campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee on 
the question of subsistence. — Proposition to get meat through the enemy's lines. 
— Obstinate objections of President Davis. — His mania about cotton. — The Con- 
federate States drained of meat in the second year of the war. — Statement of 
Commissary Northrop. — Attempt to get supplies through the blockade. — How 
mismanaged. — The Crenshaw contract.-^Small yield of impressments. — The whole 
Confederate policy of subsistence a failure. — An extraordinary device of Secretary 
Seddon. — How it played into the hands of speculators. — Reflection upon the want 
of the commercial or business faculty in the Southern mind. — A stock of childish 
expedients 464 

CHAPTER XXX. 

A. train of Confederate successes in tlie beginning of 1804. — The Battle of Ocean Pond. — 
Gen. Seymour's expedition into Florida — Its defeat and complete disaster. — 
Sherman's expedition in the Sbuthwest. — His first experiment of "the moveable 
column." — His designs upon Mobile and the Confederate lines in isTorth Georgia. — 
The co-operating column of cavalry. — Gen. Polk evacuates Meridian, and falls 
back to Demopolis. — Forrest defeats the Federal cavalry. — Disastrous and dis-' 
graceful conclusion of Sherman's adventure. — The Red River expedition. — Gen, 
Banks' designs upon Texas. — The Confederate commands in the Trans-Mis^issippi. 
— The federal advance up Red River.— The Confederates fiill back towards 
Shreveport. — Battle of Mansfield. — How the action was brought on. — Rout of the 
enemy. — Singular scenes on tlie pursuit. — Battle of Pleasant Hill. — An unfortunate 
mistake of orders. — Churchill's corps panic-stricken. — Gen. Walker holds the 
field. — The enemy continues his retreat to Alexandria. — His march a career of 
unparalleled cowardice and crime. — Large spoils of the Confederates. — The ex- 
tent of Banks' disaster. — Termination of his vision of empire west of the Missis- 
sippi. — Forrest's expedition up the Mississippi. — Capture of Fort Pillow.— Hoke's 
operations on the North Carolina coast. — Comparative unimportance of these Con- 
federate successes. — The raid of Ulric Dahlgren. — The parts of Custer and Kil- 
patrick. — Failure and ludicrous cowardice of the several expeditions. — Dahlgreu's 
atrocious designs. — He retreats, and is chased by Pollard. — Manner of his death. 
— Discovery of " the Dahlgren papers." — Sensation in Richmond. — President Davis' 
melodrama. — Statement of Edward W, Halbach in relation to the " Dahlgren pa- 
pers." — The papers first found by the schoolboy Littlepage. — How transmitted to 
Richmond. — The theory of foi-gery. — Its utter absurdity 490 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

)pening of the great spring campaign of 1864. — Explanation of renewed confidence in Rich- 
mond. — Prospect for the Confederates in the Presidential contest of 1864. — A new 
theory of peace. — Value of endurance. — The mission of Messrs. Holcombe, Clay, and 
Thompson. — They leave Wilmington when the campaign on the Rapidan opens.— 
U. S. Grant appointed Lieutonant-General of the Federal armies. — Character of 
Grant.— Compared with Buell. — Gen. Grant's low and gross conception of war.— 



CONTENTS. XXm 

The Federal Government prepares an army organization of one million of men. — 
Distribution of the Federal forces in Virginia. — Strength of the Ai-my of the Po* 
tomac. — Position and numbers of Gen. Lee. — His great anxiety. — Appeal of Con- 
federate women. — The battles of the Wilderness. — Grant crosses the Kapidan. — 
Lee springs upon his flank. — Attack of Ewell and Hill. — The Confederate line 
broken. — Gordon's splendid charge. — Gallant conduct of Pegram's and Hays' di- 
visions. — Night attack of the enemy. — Tiie second day's battle. — Hill's corps 
broken. — Longstreet comes up and turns the fortimes of the day. — He is shot 
down by his own men. — Gen. Leo offers to lead a charge. — Touching remons- 
trances of the men. — The Confederate attack withdrawn. — Results of the day.— 
Gordon's night attack. — Grant's whole army on the verge of rout. — His immense 
losses. — Movements of the two armies to Spottsylvania Court-house. — Masterly 
performance of Lee. — A melancholy episode to the campaign. — Sheridan's expedi- 
tion. — Death of Gen. Stuart. — Battles of Spottsylvania Court-house. — Combat of 
Anderson's corps. — The fighting on the 10th May. — The battle on the 12th. — A 
salient of the Confederate line taken. — Great slaughter of the enenjy. — Grant 
confesses a failure, and waits six days for reinforcements. — Operations on the 
south side of Richmond. — Grant's instructions to Butler. — Sigel's column in AVest- 
ern Virginia, another part of the combination. — Butler's boastful despatch. — Ho 
dares " The whole of Lee's army." — He is defeated by Beauregard, and his army 
"bottled up." — Operations in the Kanawlia and Shenandoah Valleys. — Signal de- 
feat of Sigel. — Grant's combination broken down. — He moves to the Korih Anna 
Elver. — Is foiled again by Lee. — He crosses the Pamunkey River. — "Tiie Pen- 
insula " made the battle-ground again. — The sura of glory achieved by Lee's 
army. — Statement as to Lee's reinforcements. — The Federal host held at bay by 
an army of fifty thousand men.— Gaseous nonsense in New York about Giant's 
generalship. — His operations in May absurd and contemptible failures 507 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Position of the armies around Richmond, June 1, 1864. — Manoeuvres for position.- • 
Battle of Cold Harbour. — Easy repulse of the enemy. — Grant decides to cross the 
river, and attempt the south side of Richmond. — Why Gen. Lee did not attempt 
to /attack him in the movement. — Battles of Petersburg. — Two attacks of the 
enepiy repulsed. — Butler advances his position, and is driven back. — Grant turns 
his attention from the fortifications to the railroads. — Demonstrations on the 
Weldon and Danville Roads. — Defeat of Sheridan's expedition on the railroads 
noi'th of Richmond. — Operations west of the Blue Ridge. — Hunter's movement. — 
He captures Staunton. — He advances upon Lynchburg. — He is defeated, and driven 
into Western Virginia. — Gen. John Morgan's expedition into Kentucky. — Its disas 
trous conclusion. — Particulars of the murder of Gen. Morgan in East Tennessee. — 
Early's invasion of Maryland. — Daring of Gen. Lee. — What he proposed by send- 
ing Eai'ly's column into the North. — Grant's preparations against this movement.— 
Battle of Monocacy Bridge. — Defeat of "Lew" Wallace's command. — Early ad- 
vances upon Washington. — Skirmish in front of Fort Stevens. — Early declines to 
attack the Federal capital and retreats. — Questions as to the strength of Washing- 
ton. — Results of Early's expedition. — Its effect on the armies operating around 
Richmond. — The mine fiasco at Petersburg. — Three elements in the plan of attack, 
— Description of the mine. — The explosion and a '•'•feu cVEnfery — The assaulting 
column pauses in the crater. — Terrible scenes of carnage. — The miserable failure. 
• — Commentary of the New York " Times." 526 



XXIV CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Sherman's campaign in Georgia tlie important correspondent of Grant's in Virginia. — 
Tbe '• On to Eichmond," and the " On to Atlanta," the two important movements 
of 1864. — Slierman's demand of numbers. — Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's command. — 
He proposes an oiiensive movement. — Is balked by Bragg at Richmond. — Statement 
of Johnston's forces on 1st May. — Johnston's policy of reti-eat. — He proposes to 
fight at Cassville; but is overrnled by Hood and Ilardee. — Ee crosses the Etowah. 
— Engagement at New Hope Church. — Battle of Kenesaw Mountain. — Sherman's 
ghastly experiment. — He resorts to manoeuvring. — Johnston retires to Atlanta. — 
The situation around Atlanta. — Defe'at of Sturgis' column in North Mississippi. — 
Johnston master of the situation. — Wonderful success of his retreat. — He holds 
Sherman suspended for destruction. — Naval fight in Mobile Bay. — A match of 212 
guns against 22. — How the gunboats Selma and Morgan fought the enemy. — 
Gallant fight of the iron-clad Tennessee. — Surrender of the forts in the harbour. 
— Little value of Farragut's conquest. — Excessive laudation of him in the North. 
— Sinking of the Confederate privateer Alabama. — Review of the result of the 
privateering service of the Confederates. — A glance at British " neutrality." — How 
Earl Russell was bullied by the Washington Government. — The story of the Lairds' 
rams. — Cruise of the Alabama. — Why she fought the Kearsarge off the French 
coast. — Capt. Semmes' motives for a naval duel. — The Alabama sinking. — The 
Federal vessel sends no relief. — Mr. Seward's little remark about " pirates." — 
Discovery of concealed armour on the Kearsarge. — How the Richmond editors 
•would have treated Capt, Winslow. — A curious annecdote of Admiral Farra- 
gut. — Capture of the privateer Florida. — The exploit of Napoleon Collins in a 
neutral port. — He attempts to sink and then steals the Confederate vessel. — The 
New York EeraUl and " The pages of History." — Invasion of Missouri by Gen. 
Price. — How and why it failed. — The Trans-Mississippi sunk out of sight in the 
War 539 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

The Presidential canvass of 1804 in the North. — Its relations to the military campaign. 
—Review of parties in the North. — A general distinction founded on two 
questions. — Composition of the party opposing Mr. Lincoln's administration. — The 
doctrines of the Black Republican party impossible to be defined. — How the Party 
changed and shifted through the war. — Opinions of Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay. — 
Modem verification of Mr. Clay's charge of " amalgamation." — Policy of the Black 
Repiiblican party at the beginning of the war. — Mr. Lincoln's instincts of unwor- 
thiness. — How the Peace party in the North made the first false step. — Growth 
of the power of Lincoln's administration. — Its measures of terrour. — Moderation 
of the Confederacy towards "Union men" and dissentients. — Some account of 
arrests in the North, — Lincoln's detective system. — Comparative impossibility of 
maintaining an Opposition party in the North. — ^Infamous conduct of "War 
Democrats," — The Conservative phalanx in the Congress at Washington. — A 
record of its votes. — Reassui-ance of the Conservative party in 18G4. — The party 
issues of 1864, with reference to " reconstruction." — Convention of the Govern- 
ment party at Baltimore, — Its "platform." — Pretermission of the condition of 
State abolition of slavery. — How this condition was afterwards inserted, — Mr. 
Lincoln's rescript, " To whom it may concern." — History of the Niagara Falls com- 
mission. — How Mr, Lincoln's passport was made a political card.— Democratic 



CONTENTS. XXV 

Convention at Chicago. — Its declamtion of princii)les. — M'Clellan's letter of 
acceptance. — Slavery no longer an issue in the war. — The constitutional point at 
issue between M'Clellan ami Lincoln, — The liadical wing of the Republican party. 
— The Cleveland convention. — The issues of the canvass as between the Democratia 
party, the Government i)arty, and the Radical party. — How the two last 
instead of the two first coalesced. — "Reconstruction" ante-dated. — A faint 
bint of negro sufirage. — The written issues of the canvass but little considered. 
— The contest mainly on the fourth resolution- of the Chicago "platform.'' — 
Eloquence of the M'Clellan campaign papers. — Tlie election of M'Clellan impossible 
in view of the Federal victories of ISG-i. — Triumph of Mr. Lincoln and his party.— 
Analysis of tlie popular vote in his election. — A large element of encouragement 
in it. — The victory of the Constitution postponed 556 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

Aji intrigue in Richmond against Gen. Johnston. — Evidence of it. — Gen. Bragg's visit to 
Atlanta. — Removal of Gen. Johnston frum command. — The battles of Atlanta.— 
Engagements of the 20th, 22d, and 28th July. — Sherman's designs on the Macon 
Road. — Unsuccessful raids of Stoneman and M'Cook, — Hood's great mistake. — He 
sends off his cavalry towards Chattanooga. — Sherman moves on the Macon Road. 
— Defeat of Hardee at Jonesboro'. — Hood evacuates Atlanta, and retreats to Love- 
joy's Station. — Sherman's occupation of Atlanta. — His order for its depopulation. — 
Atrocious character of this measure. — The fall of Atlanta a serious disaster for 
the Confederates. — Visit of President Davis to the military lines in Georgia. — His 
speech at Macon. — He betrays to the enemy tlie new military design. — Hood's new 
movement to Tennessee. — Sherman follows to Gaylesville. — He turns back and 
determines to traverse the State of Georgia to the sea. — His correspondence with 
Grant. — How the enterprise was a plain one. — Ko peril or genius in it. — Errors of 
the Hood-Davis strategy. — Hood's Tennessee campaign. — He loses the great 
opportunity of the camiwign at Spring Hill. — Scliofield effects a retreat to 
Franklin. — Battle of Franklin. — Heroic conduct of the Confederate troops. — 
Remarkable loss among their general officers. — Battle of Nashville. — Gen. 
Grant'^/' fears that Hood would invade Kentucky, — Probable effect of such a 
movement. — The enemy's plan of battle, — The second daiy's figlit. — Hood's 
assurknce of victory. — A Confederate brigade gives way before a skirmisli line 
of thV enemy. — A disgraceful panic and rout. — Hood escapes across tlie Tennes- 
see River. — His losses. — The whole scheme of Confederate defence terminated 
"West of the Alleghanies . 576 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

flampaign of 1804 in the V.illey of Virginia. — Its general design as a strategic auxiliary 
to Richmond. — The new command of the enemy in the Valley, — Gen. Sheridan and 
his forces. — Views of Gen. Lee about the relief of Richmond. — He detaches a 
force under Gen, Anderson to co-operate with Early, and " stir up" the enemy 
across the Potomac. — Anderson and Fitzhugh Lee find Early falling back and asking 
for reinforcements. — The enemy declines a batt'e and retreats to Harper's Ferry.— 
Strength and disposition of the Confederate forces about Winchester. — Nearly a 
month consumed in marching and counter-marching, — Gen, Lee orders the return of 
Gen. Anderson with Kershaw's division. — Battle of "Winchester. — Gen. Grant advises 
Sheridan to "go in." — Early's small force. — How it came to be scattered over 
twenty-two miles. — Ramseur's division sustains the attack until the other Confed- 



XXVI CONTENTS. 

erate forces come np. — Gordon drives tlie enemy. — Happy stroke of a Confederate 
battery. — The enemy's infantry routed. — His cavalry 'get on the Confederate ]eft 
and rear and change the day. — Retreat of the Confederates. — Battle of Fisher's Hill. 
— How Gen. Early's position was defective here. — He is flanked on the left, and 
retreats up the Valley. — The enemy pursues to Staunton. — Sheridan's barbarous 
order to devastate the Valley. — He burns "two thousand barns." — Eeflections 
upon thig outrage. — Battle of Cedar Creek. — Early, reinforced, resumes the cam- 
paign, and determines to make a surprise. — A flanking column of Confederates 
crosses the North Fork of the Shenandoah. — Two corps of the enemy broken and 
put to rout. — The enemy pursued through Middletown. — How the vigour of pursuit 
was lost. — The foolish newspaper story about Gen. Sheridan's sudden appearance on 
the field. — The Confederates demoralized by pillage. — The enemy makes a counter- 
charge, and sweeps everything before him. — Gen. Early's attempt to put the 
censure of the disaster upon his men. — How far he was responsible for it. — True 
explanation of tlie pause in his victory. — Removal of Gen. Early from command. — 
Gen, Lee's generous letter to him. — How the newspapers berated him. — The charge 
of habitual intoxication. — Review of the Valley campaign. — Its eflfects decisive upon 
Richmond.^-Remark of a Confederate general. — Some views of the management and 
disposition of the Confederate cavalry forces in Virginia 589 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Gen. Grant's opinion of manoeuvring. — Lee his master in every branch of generalship. — 
The Federals get possession of the Weldon railroad. — Action at Ream's Station. — 
Operations North of James River. — Surprise and capture of Fort Harrison. — At- 
tempt of the Confederates to retake it disconcerted and defeated. — Grant plans 
a general advance in October. — Three corps of the enemy in motion. — Attempt 
to turn the Confederate position on Hatcher's Run, and seize the Southside Rail- 
road. — Defeat of the enemy and frustration of his plans. — Public attention drawn 
to Georgia. — Sherman's march to the sea. — He returns from Gaylesville to Atlanta. 
— The work of destruction commenced at Rome. — Burning cf Atlanta. — More than 
four thousand houses consum.ed. — Outline of Sherman's march from Atlanta. — The 
country it traverses full of sujjplies. — Pilhige of Madison. — Concentration of the 
enemy's forces at Milledgeville. — An affair of militia at Griswoldsville. — Kil- 
patrick's demonstration on Augusta. — Statement of Confederate forces there. — 
Sherman's march to Millen. — He meets with no resistance. — His devastation of the 
country. — Prowess of his troops in pillage and villainy. — Nothing but militia and 
hasty levies to oppose him. — Sherman's approach to Savannah. — Fort M'AUister 
taken by assault. — Gallantry of the Confederate garrison. — Gen. Hardee evacuates 
Savannah. — Extent of Sherman's captures, — How much of his achievements was 
" simple waste and destruction." — Review of " the great march." — Absurd his- 
torical comparisons in the North. — Character of Gen. Sherman. — His charlatanism. 
— His proper place in history 606 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

The exchange of prisoners, and their treatment in captivity, — Exceeding interest of 
the' subject. — Slight account of prisoners in the early periods of the war. — Mr. 
Boyce's proposition. — The Wool-Cobb negotiation. — The Fort Donelson captures. 
— Bad faith of the Federal Government. — The cartel of 1862. — Character of Com- 
missioner Ould. — His humane and zealous services. — Shameful violation of 
the cartel by the Federal authorities. — Solemn protest of Commissioner Ould.— 



CONTENTS. XXVll 

Counter-charge of the Federals. — It is disproved by Commissioner Ould. — Case oi 
Streight. — The Federal Government declares pnroles void. — Commissioner Ould 
denounces the cheat. — Ilis retaliation with respect to the Vicksburg prisoners. — 
He waives the cartel, and makes a new proposition. — He sends to Washington 
lists of mortality in the Andersonville prison. — The Federal Government does not 
reply. — Its persistent and inhuman silence. — Explanation of it. — The Washington 
Government resolved to make a case of " rebel barbarity." — The site, arrange- 
ment-s and discipline of the Andersonville prison. — Explanation of the suftering and 
mortality there. — Extraordinary proposition of the Confederate Government to 
release without equivalents and without formality all sick and wounded Federal 
prisoners. — Secretary Stanton deaf to the cry of the sufferers. — His great guilt. — 
Exchanges resumed under Gen. Grant's authority. — Eeport of the joint select 
committee of the Confederate Congress, appointed to investigate the condition and 
treatment of prisoners of war. — Northern publications on tliis subject. — Refuta- 
tion of " raw - head - and - bloody - bones " stories. — Humanity of the Confederate 
authorities. — A terrible record of • Federal cruelties. — Barbarous punishments in 
Northern prisons. — Last humane proposition of Commissioner Ould. — His letter to 
Gen. Grant. — A complete record of justice and humanity on the part of the Con- 
federates G16 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

How Sherman's march through Georgia developed a crisis in the Confederacy. — Geo- 
graphical impossibility of the conquest of the South. — Address of the Confederate 
Congress. — A vulgar and false estimate of the enemy's success. — Maps of conquest 
and cobweb lines of occupation. — General decay of public spirit in the Con- 
federacy. — Popular impatience of the war. — Want of confidence in President Davis' 
administration. — Bewildered attempts at counter-revolution. — Executive misman- 
agement in Richmond. — How the Conscription law was cheated. — Deserters in 
the Confederate armies. — Peculiar causes for it. — Its frightful extent. — How it 
was not a sign of infidelity to the Confederate cause. — Condition of the commis- 
sariatf — Bread taken from Gen. Lee's army to feed prisoners. — Alarming reduc- 
tion (if supplias. — Major French's letter. — Lee's troops bordering on starvation. — 
Eightypoints presented to Congress. — What it did. — The condition of the currency. 
— Oonggress curtails the currency one-third. — Act of ITth February, 1864. — Secre- 
tary Seddou gives the coiip-de-grace to the currency. — His new standard of value 
in wheat at forty dollars a bushel. — Disorders of the currency and commissariat 
as contributing to desertions. — Impracticability of all remedies for desertions. — No 
disaffection in the Confederacy, except with reference to faults of the Richmond 
administration. — President Davis and tlie Confederate Congress, &c. — Three princi- 
pal measures in Congress directed against the President. — Remonstrance of the Vir- 
ginia delegation with reference to the Cabinet. — Resignation of Mr. Seddon. — Per- 
sonal relations between Pi-esident Davis and Gen. Lee. — Why the latter declined 
to take command of all the armies of the Confederacy. — AVant of self-assertion in 
Gen. Lee's character. — Why his influence in the general affairs of the Confederacy 
was negative. — Recrimination between President Davis and Congress.— A singular 
item in the Conscription Bureau. — Remark of Mrs. Davis to a Confederate Senator. 
— The opposition led by Senator Wigfall. — His terrible and eloquent invectives. — 
A chapter of great oratory lost to the world. — An apparent contradiction in the 
President's character, — The influence of " small favourites." — John M. Daniel'a 



XXVlll CONTENTS. 

opinion of President Davis' tears. — Influence of the President almost entirely gono 
in the last periods of the war. — The visible wrecks of his administration. — 
History of " peace propositions " in Congress. — They were generalities. — Analysis 
of the "Union Party" in the South. — How Gov. Bro.Wn, of Georgia, was used by 
it. — Its persistent design upon the Virginia Legislature, — How it was rebuffed. — ■ 
Heroic choice of Virginia. — President Davis' tribute to this State. — Want of reso- 
lution in other parts of the Confederacy. — Summary explanation of the decline and 
fall of the Confederacy. — Proposition to arm the slaves of the South indicative of 
a desperate condition. — How it was impracticable and absurd. — Not five thousand 
spare muskets in the Confederacy. — Paltry legislation of Congress. — Grasping at 
shadows 644 



CHAPTER XL. 

Gten. Sherman's new base at Savannah. — ^He prepares to march through the Carolinas. — 
Gen. Grant's first idea to bring Sherman's army to Virgina by water. — Opening 
of the Carolina campaign.;— Howard's movement towards Charleston. — The line of 
the Salkahatchie taken. — Slocum threatens Augusta. — Junction of the two columns 
in the vicinity of the Augusta and Charleston Railroad. — Scenes of license and 
plunder on Sherman's march. — Savage atrocities.— The track of fire. — Sherman'a 
"bummers." — What was thought of them in Wasliington. — Sherman turns his 
• columns on Columbia. — Disposition of the Confederate forces between Augusta 
and Charleston. — "Why Columbia was not defended. — Gallantry of Gen. Wade Hamp- 
ton. — Sack and destruction of Columbia. — Sherman's solemn promise to the Mayor. 
— Robbery and outrage in the streets. — The Catholic Convent. — Some of the Fede- 
ral soldiers tell of the proposed destruction of the town. — It is fired in twenty 
places. — Horrors of the contlagration. — ^Scenes of misery and ruin. — Proofs that 
Slierman was responsible for the fire. — Array of evidence on this su'bject. — Fall 
of Charleston. — The city evacuated by Hardee. — Occasion of delay by President 
Davis.— An explosion and contlagration. — Appearance of the city after four years 
of conflict. — Capture of Fort Fisher. — Fall of Wilmington. — The enemy's views of 
the importance of Wilmington. — How it was to be used as another base of opera- 
tions towards Richmond. — Its capture auxiliary to Sherman's movement. — The 
first expedition against it. — Butler's powder-ship. — Failure of the expedition. — • 
The Butler-Grant controversy. — Second expedition against Wilmington. — Gen. 
Bragg again on the military stage. — How the enemy effected a landing above 
Fort Fisher. — Want of vigilance on the part of the Confederates. — Gen. Hoke 
flanked and retreats. — The Fort taken by assault. — Co-operation of the enemy's 
fleet. — -Its terrible fire. — Gen. Bragg evacuates Wilmington. — Grant's instructions 
to Schofield to co-operate with Sherman. — The campaign in North Carolina. — 
Sherman moves apparently towards Charlotte, and deflects to Fayetteville. — 
Movement of the co-operating columns from Wilmington and Newbern.' — Gen. 
Bragg engages the enemy near Kinston. — Success of the Confederates. — Arrival 
of Scliofield and Terry at Goldsboro'. — Sherman pushes on there. — Gen. Johnston's 
command, and distribution of the Confederate forces. — Hardee loses two-thirds 
of his army by desertions. — He engages the enemy near Averysboro', and is com- 
pelled to fall back. — The engagement at Bentonville. — Johnston fights two corps 
of the enemy and Kilpatrick's cavalry with fourteen thousand men. — Success on 
the Confederate right. — Johnston holds his ground against the whole of Sher- 
man's army, and r(>treats deliberately to Smithfield. — Sherman's arrival at Golds- 
toro'. — Conference at City Point of Sherman, Grant and President Lincoln.. . . .661 



CONTENTS. XXIX 



CHAPTER XL I. 



Gen. Lee's lines around Richmond and Petersburg. — Comparison of his force withthatof 
the enemy. — Gen. Lee's sentiment about surrender. — Dull condition of the popu- 
lace in Richmond. — Extravagant rumours, — Story of the French messenger. — Tlie 
Fortress Monroe conference. — Mr. Blair's visit to Richmond. — Notes of Presidents 
Davis and Lincoln.— Conversation of the former with Alexander IL Stephens.— 
Official narrative of the conference in Hampton Roads. — A rhetorical appeal to 
the people of the Confederacy. — A day of speeches in Richmond. — President Davis' 
speech at the African Church. — Its extravagant and swollen tone. — A remark on 
the temper and vanity of the President.— Battle of Hare's Ilill. — Design of the 
action on the part of Gen. Lee. — The general disposition of his forces. — Capture of 
Fort Steadman. — The Confederates falter. — What the day provtd. — The last 
battles around Petersburg. — Why Grant hurried the final operations. — The prelim- 
inary expedition of Sheridan's cavalry. — What it accomplished. — The attempt 
upon Lee's right. — Desperate resource of the Confederate commander. — Battle of 
Five Forks. — Misbehaviour of the Confederates. — Gen. Lee's reproach. — Bombard- 
ment of the Petersburg lines. — The assault. — The Confederates' lines broken. — 
Defence of Fort Gregg. — A thrilling scene of self-devotion. — The Confederates 
forced back upon Petersburg. — Death of Gen. A. P. Hill. — Evacuation of Richmond. 
—The city unprepared for the news. — Fright and disorder in the streets. — A 
curious scene in the Capitol. — Gen. Ewell's withdrawal from the city. — He fires 
a number of warehouses. — A frightful conflagration. — Scenes of sublime horrour. 
— Grand entree of the Federals. — Ravages of the gre. — Exultation in Northern 
cities. — Stuff of Yankee newspapers. — Due estimate of Grant's achievement in the 
fall of Richmond. — Definition of generaLhip. — The qualities of mind exhibited by 
the North in the war • 679 

CHAPTER XLII. 

Public feeling in Richmond after evacuation day. — President Davis' proclamation at 
Danville. — New and sanguine theory of Confederate defence. — Moral effect of the 
fall of Richmond. — Retreat and final surrender of Lee's army. — Crossing of the 
Appomatti>x. — Explosion of magazines. — The wagon-train from Richmond. — 
Order, of Grant's pursuit. — General Lee's new hopes. — They are dashed at Amelia 
Courtthouse. — The confederates in a starving condition. — Lee abandons the route 
to Dar\ville and makes for Lynchburg, by way of Farmville. — Sufferings on the 
march.— Demoralization of the troops. — Some spirited episodes. — The action of 
Sailors' Creek. — The Confederates in the vicinity of Farmville. — Affairs with the 
enemy. — The Confederates retreat to Appomattox Court-house, without molesta- 
tion. — Sense of relief among the troops. — Ominous sounds of cannon. — The exit 
to Lynchburg closed by Sheridan. — Desperate adventure of Gordon's corps. — The 
recoil. — A flag of truce on the scene. — Correspondence between Gens. Grant and 
Lee, leading to the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. — The conference 
at M"Lean's house. — Gen. Lee announcing the terms of surrender. — A touching 
scene at his headquarters. — Gen. Lee's farewell address to his army. — ^^lagnani- 
mous and delicate behaviour of Grant. — Gen. Lee's return to his home. — Great 
exultation at Washington. — Secretary Stanton's congratulations. — Scene at the Pres- 
ident's house. — Characteristic speech and last joke of Abraham Lincoln 700 

CHAPTER XLIII. 
Qen. Lee's surrender the decisive event of the war. — Strength and situation of the 



XXX CONTENTS. 

Confederate forces Soutli of Yirginia. — Surrender of Johnston's army. — Gen. 
Johnston's line of retreat from Ealeigh. — Sherman's pursuit. — The conference at 
Durham Station.— Sherman's " memorandum or basis of agreement." — He attempts 
an extraordinary game of hypocrisy. — His astounding confessions at Wasliington. 
— Curious speech at a soldiers' festivai.— oiierman's convention Avith Johnston 
repudiated at Washington. — Johnston compelled to surrender on the terms given 
Lee. — Review of the sections of Confederate defence. — Operations in the Southwest, 
— Capture of Mobile. — "Wilson's expedition. — The expedition of Gen. Canby against 
Mobile and Central Alabama. — Statements of his force. — The works and garrison 
of Mobile. — Siege of Spanish Fort. — Gen. Maury orders its evacuation. — Capture of 
Fort Blakely. — Evacuation of Mobile. — How Wilson's cavalry was to co-(iperat« 
with Canby. — Disposition of the forces of Gens, Forrest and Roddy. — Capture of 
Selma, Montgomery and Columbus. — The Heroic episode of West Point.- — Wilson 
advances upon Macon. — News of Sherman's truce. — Surrender of all the confed- 
erate forces in Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana. — The Trans-Mississippi. — 
Surrender of Gen. Smith. — Hope of prolonging the war west of the Mississippi 
River. — The last calculation of " European recognition." — Surrender of the Trans- 
Mississippi army to Gen. Canby. — The downfall of the Confederacy complete. — Some 
reflections on the termination of the war. — Its flat conclusion. — No grand catas- 
trophe. — Explanation of this. — Theories, to account for the failure of the Confederacy. 
— The vulgar argument of the numerical superiority of the North. — How this 
argumet^t is defective. — The true basis of comparison between the military forces 
of Nortn an^l South. — The numerical inequality not sufficient to determine the war 
against the South. — Inconsistency of this argument on the part of Southern leaders. 
— The relation of numbers to other elements of armed contest. — What advantages 
the South had in the extent and features of her territory. — General conclusion and 
an important reflection consequent upon it -. T14 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

Proper limit of the narrative of the war. — A glance at its political consequences. — 
General condition of the South after the war. — Alternative of policies at Washing- 
ton. — Hideous programme of the radicals. — The policy of reconciliation. — En- 
lightened lesson of history, — The problem of "reconstruction." — Coincidence of 
moderate Republicans with the Conservative plan. — Position of President Johnson. 
— Estimate of the views and character of the new President. — His school of 
politics, midway between those of Calhoun and Hamilton. — A happy position. — 
The great historical issue, — Series of Radical measures in Congress. — The blindness 
of despotism. — Plain consequences of the Radical policy.- — The residuum of State 
Eights claimed by the South, — President Johnson's declaration of another war.^ 
Have the Americans a government ? — DilFerences of opinion in the South, corres- 
pondent to the division of parties in the North, — A small and detestable faction 
of time-servers, — Noble declaration of Ex-President Davis, — Eloquent appeal of 
Henry A. Wisg. — Basis for a new Southern party, — The South to surrender only 
what the war conquered. — What the war determined, and what it did not deter- 
mine. — The new arena of contest and " the War of Ideas." — Coarse and superficial 
advice to the South about material prosperity, — An aspiration of Gov, Orr of 
South Carolina, — The South should not lose its moral and intellectual distinct- 
iveness as a people. — Questions outside the pale of the war. — Rights, duties and 
hope* of the South, — What would be the extremity of her humiliation ,743 



CHAPTER I. 

TIIE TBUB VALUE OF THE FEDERAL PRINCIPLE. — HISTORICAL EXAMPLES. — COLERIDGE's PRO- 
PHECY. — THE EARLY MISSION OF THE AMERICAN UNION. — HOW TERMINATED. THB 

AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT A MIXED ONE. THE COLONIAL PERIOD. FIRST 

PROPOSITION OF A GENERAL CONGRESS. — DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. ARTICLES 

OF CONFEDERATION. THEIR OCCASION AND ORIGIN. NATURE OF TIIE COMPACT.— 

PEACE-TREATY OF 1783. ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE AND VALUE OF THE CONFEDERA- 
TION. HOW IT WAS TERMINATED. THE CONVENTION OF 1Y87. CHARACTER OF THE 

MEN "WHO COMPOSED IT. — POLITICAL IDOLATRY IN AMERICA. — PARTIES IN THE CON- 
VENTION. — THE QUESTION OF REPRESENTATION. — THE NOVELTY OP THE AMERIOAM 
CONSTITUTION THE EESULT OF AN ACCIDENT. — STATE RIGHTS. — AMENDMENTS TO THE 
CONSTITUTION. — NATURE OF THE AMERICAN UNION. — NOT A CONSOLIDATED NATION- 

ALITY. THE RIGHT OF SECESSION. — THE UNION NOT THE PROCLAMATION OF A NEW 

CIVIL POLITY. NOT A POLITICAL REVOLUTION. A CONVENIENCE OF THE STATES, 

WITH NO MISSION APAET FROM TIIE STATES. — THE TWO POLITICAL SCHOOLS OF AMER- 
ICA. CONSOLIDATION AND STATE RIGHTS. — HOW THE SLAVERY QUESTION WAS IN- 
VOLVED. — A SHARP ANTITHESIS. — THE KENTUCKY AND VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS. — WEB- 
STER AND CALHOUN, THE ANTITYPES OF NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN STATESMANSHIP. — 
MR. CALHOLTSl's DOCTRINES. — " NULLIFICATION " A UNION-SAVING MEASURE. — ITS 
INGENUITY AND CONSERVATISM. — CALHOUN's PROFOUND STATESMANSHIP. — INJUSTICE TO 
HIS ifEMORY. — HOW THE SOUTH HAS BEEN INJURED BY FALSE PARTY NAMES. 

Thbee is Dotliing of political pliilosoiDliy more plainly tauglit in history 
than the limited value of the Federal principle. It had been experi- 
mented upon in various ages of the world — in the Amphictyonic Council, 
in the Ach^an league, in the United Provinces of Holland, in Mexico, in 
Central America, in Columbia, and in the Argentine republic ; in all 
these instances the form of government established upon it had become 
extinct, or had passed into the alternative of consolidation or anarchy and 
disintegration. Indeed, it is plain enough that such a form of government 
iii the resource only of small and weak communities ; that it is essentially 
temporary in its nature ; and that it has never been adopted by States 
which had apjoroached a mature condition, and had passed the period of 
])upillage. It is not to be denied that the Federal principle is valuable in 
j^eculiar circumstances and for temporary ends. But it is essentially not 
3 



84: THE LOST CAUSE. 

permanent ; and all attempts to make it so, though marked for certain 
periods by fictitious prosperity and sudden evidences of material activity 
and progi-ess, have ultimately resulted in intestine commotions and the 
extinction of the form of government. "What, indeed, can he more natural 
than that the members of a confederation, after they have advanced in 
political life and become mature and powerful, should desire for tliem- 
eelves independence and free action, and be impatient of a system founded 
on their early and past necessities ! 

Coleridge, the acute English scholar and philosopher, once said that he 
looked upon the American States as " splendid masses to be used by and 
by in the composition of two or three great governments." For more 
than a generation past it was considered by a party in America, as well as 
by intelligent men in other parts of the world, that the American Union, 
as a confederation of States, had performed its mission, and that the coun- 
try was called to the fulfilment of another political destiny. 

And here it is especially to be remarked that those statesmen of the 
South, who for more than thirty years before the war of 1861 despaired 
of the continuation of the Union, w^ere yet prompt to acknowledge its 
benefits in the past. There could be no dispute about the success of its 
early mission ; and no intelligent man in America dared to refer to the 
Union without acknowledging the country's indebtedness to it in the past. 
It had peopled and fertilized a continent ; it had enriched the world's com- 
merce with a new trade ; it had developed population, and it was steadily 
training to manhood the States which composed it, and fitting them for 
the responsibility of a new political life. The party that insisted at a (!er- 
tain period that the interests of the Southern States demanded a separate 
and independent government, simply held the doctrine that the country 
had outlived the necessities of the Union, and had become involved in 
the abuses of a system, admirable enough in its early conception, but 
diverted from its original objects and now existing only as the parent of 
intolerable rivalries, and the source of constant intestine commotions. 

With reference to these abuses, it must be remarked here that although 
the Federal principle was the governing one of the American Union, yet 
such Union was not purely a confederation of States ; it was mixed with 
parts of another system of government ; and that the subordination of the 
Federal principle to these produced many additional causes of disruption, 
which plainly hurried the catastrophe of separation and war. 

But before coming to the subject of these abuses, it will be necessary 
to determine the true nature and value of the Union. We must go back 
to an early period of American history ; we must explore the sources of 
the great political parties in the country ; and we must enumerate among 
the causes of disunion not only the inherent weakness of the Federal prin- 
ciple, but those many controversies wliich aided and expedited the result, 



THE LOST CAUSE. 35 

and in which the true idea of the Union was violated, the government dis- 
torted to the ends of part}^, and faction put in the place of a statesmanship 
that sought lono; but iu vain to check its vile ambition and avert the final 
result. 

"When the thirteen colonies in ITorth America resolved to throw off the 
yoke of Great Britain, committees of correspondence were established in 
each colony. In May, 1774, after Lord Dunmore dissolved a patriotic 
Virginia House of Burgesses, eighty-nine of its members met at the 
Raleigh Tavern, in "Williamsburg, and, among other acts, recommended 
that all the colonies should send deputies to a General Congress, to watch 
over tlie united interests of all, and deliberate upon and ascertain the 
measures best adapted to promote them. 

On the 4th of July, 1776, the Congress published a Declaration of 
Independence. It declared that the colonies were " free and independent 
States," thus asserting their separate State sovereignty, and expressly 
negativing the idea of consolidation, held by 'New Hampshire, who on the 
15th of June, 1776, voted that tlie Thirteen United Colonies ought to be 
declared " a free and independent State," 

At this time the only common agent of the States was a Congress 
which really had no legislative power. Its action was generally wise, and 
therefore cheerfully acquiesced in and made eflicient by the principals. 
But as the war continued, its pressure became heavier ; men, money, and 
supplies were needed ; and often the resolutions of Congress were either 
wholly neglected or positively repudiated by the States. It became ap- 
parent that the common agent must be clothed with actual power, and 
this could only be done by an express agreement between the States, 
whereby each should bind itself to observe certain rules, and obey certain 
regulationa^dopted to secure the common safety. 

It was thus that the first Confederation of the American States — the 
articles ibf which were adopted by the several States in 1777 — originated 
in the necessities of the war waged by them against Great Britain for their 
independence, A common danger impelled them to a close alliance, and 
to the formation of a confederation, by the terms of which the colonies, 
styling themselves States, entered " severally into a firm league of friend- 
ship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties, 
and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each 
other against all force ofl'ered to or attacks made upon tliem or any of them, 
on account of religion, sovereignty, trade or any other pretence whatever." 

In order to guard against any misconstruction of their compact, the 
several States made explicit declaration, in a distinct article, that " ea<;h 
State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, 
jurisdiction, and right which is not by this confederation expressly ddc- 
gated to the United States in Congress assembled." 



36 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Tlie objects and character of tliis confederation or union were thus dis- 
tinctly defined. Under its terms the war of the lievolution was success- 
fully waged, and resulted in the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 
1783, by the terms of which the several States were, each hy name, recog- 
nized to be independent. 

As the Confederation originated in the necessities of the war against 
Great Britain, it was these necessities which determined its character and 
measured its powers. It was something more than a military alliance ; 
for it was intended to unite the resources of the States, to make a common 
financial fund, and to " secure the public credit at home and abroad.'' 
Partial and imperfect as was the union it established, it accomplished a 
great historical work, and dated an important era ; it supplied what 
scarcely anything else could have supplied — a political bond between colo- 
nies suddenly erected into sovereign States ; it was the stepping stone to 
a firmer association of the States, and a more perfect union. In this sense 
are to be found its true oflices and value. Lines of exasperated division 
had been drawn between the colonies ; the sharp points of religious antag- 
onism had kept them at a distance ; the natural difficulties of intercourse 
and the legislative obstructions of trade had separated them ; differences 
of government, contrast of manners, diversity of habits had contributed to 
the estrangement ; and in these circumstances a bond of union, however 
slightly it held theip, was important as the initial of their political asso- 
ciation, and was educating them for the new and enlarged destiny dated 
with their independence. 

We have implied that the Confederation was a bond of very partial 
and imperfect efi'ect. It practically existed not more than two years ; 
although its nominal term in history is eight years. It was debated for 
nearly five years. It was not consummated until 1781. It was full of 
glaring defects ; it had no power to enforce the common will of the 
States ; it had no jurisdiction of individuals ; it had but a mixed and con- 
fused power over foreign relations, and the treaties it might make were 
dependent on commercial regulations of the different States. Having out- 
lived the prime necessity that originated it during the war, its cohesive 
powers gradually gave way ; it yielded to the impressions of new events : 
and it is remarkable that the association formed under it and entitled a 
" Perpetual Union " was practically terminated by the uninterrupted free 
will of the States which composed it. 

A convention of delegates assembled from the diflerent States at Phila- 
delphia in May, 1787. It had been called by Congress " for the sole and 
express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting 
to Congress and the several legislatm'es such alterations and provisions 
therein, as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, 
vender the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies and the preser- 



THE LOST CAUSE. 37 

oration of the Union." This was the Convention that erected the two 
famous political idols in America : the Constitution of 1789 and the Union 
formed under it, and entitled itself to the extravagant adulation of three 
generations as the wisest and best of men. 

This adulation is simply absurd. The language in the call of the Con- 
vention was singulai'ly confused. The men who composed it were com- 
mon flesh and blood, very ignorant, very much embaiTassed, many of 
them unlettered, and many educated just to that point where men are 
silly, visionary, dogmatic and impracticable. 

Ilildreth, the American historian, has made a very just remark, which 
describes the cause of the unpopularity of his own compositions. He says : 
" In dealing with our revolutionary annals, a great difficulty had to be en- 
countered in the mythic, heroic character above, beyond, often wholly apart 
from the truth of historj^, with which, in the popular idea, the fathers and 
founders of our American Republic have been invested. American litera- 
ture having been mainly of the rhetorical cast, and the Kevolution and 
the old times of the forefathers forming standing subjects for periodical 
eulogies, in which every new orator strives to outvie his predecessors, the 
true history of those times, in spite of ample records, illustrated by the 
labors of many diligent and conscientious inquirers, has yet been almost 
obliterated by declamations which confound all discrimination and just 
appreciation in one confused glare of patriotic eulogium." * 

* We find in 1866, even after the experience of the war, President Johnson declaring that the 
autliours of the Constitution were diimiely inspired ; that " they needed and obtained a wisdom 
superiour to experience." This is silly extravagance, if not worse. We shall see that there was 
one element of originality and of great virtue in the Constitution ; but apart from this, the sober 
student of history, looking over three generations of fierce political conflict in America, must be 
struck by the enormous defects and omissions of an instrument that has shared so much the undue 
admiration of mankind. 

In anotlier work the authour has enumerated in the paragraphs quoted below the defective texts 
of the Constitution : 

" It is impossible to resist the thought, that the framers of the Constitution were so much occu- 
pied with the controversy of jealousy between the large and the small States that they overlooked 
many great and obvious questions of government, which have since been fearfully developed in the 
political history of America. Beyond the results and compromises of that jealousy, the debates and 
the work of the Convention show one of the most wonderful blanks that has, perhaps, ever occurred 
it the political inventions of civilized mankind. They left behind them a list of imperfections in 
political prescience, a want of provision for the exigencies of their country, such as has seldom been 
known in the history of mankind." 

" A system of negro servitude existed in some of the States. It was an object of no solicitude 
in the Convention. The only references in the Constitution to it are to be found in a provision in 
relatLon to the rendition of fugitives ' held to service or labour,' and in a mixed and empirical rule of 
»opular representation. However these provisions may imply the true status of slavery, how much 
is it to be regretted that the Convention did not make (what might have been made so easily) an ex- 
plicit declaration on the subject, that would have put it beyond the possil)ility of dispute, and re- 
moved it from even the plausibility of party controversy ! " 



3b THE LOST CAUSE. 

The Constitution formed by this Convention, although singularly defi- 
cient — and so far from being esteemed by American demagogueism as 
" almost of Divine authority," actually one of the loosest political instru- 
ments in the world — contained one admirable and novel principle, which 
grew out of the combination of circumstances in the debate. One party 
in the Convention plausibly contended that its power was limited to a 
mere revision and amendment of the existing Articles of Confederation, 
and that it was authorized to add nothing to the Federal principle. 
Another j)arty favoured the annihilation of the State governments. A 
third party stood between these extremes, and recommended a " national " 
government in the sense of a supreme power with respect to certain objects 
common between the States and committed to it. But when on this third 
plan the question of representation arose, it was found that the large States 
insisted upon a preponderating influence in both houses of the JSTational 
Legislature, while the small States insisted on an equality of representa- 
tion in each house ; and out of this conflict came the mixed representation 

" For many years the very obvious question of the power of the General Government to make 
' internal improvements ' has agitated the councils of America : and yet there is no text in the Con- 
Btitution to regulate a matter which should have stared its authours in the face, but what may be 
derived, by the most forced and distant construction, from the powers of Congress ' to regulate com- 
merce,' and to ' declare war,' and ' raise and support armies.' " 

"For a longer period, and with a fierceness once almost fatal to the Union, has figured in the poli- 
tics of America ' the tariff question,' a contest between a party for revenue and a party for protective 
prohibitions. Both parties have fought over that vague platitude of the Constitution, the power of 
Congress ' to regulate commerce ; ' and in the want of a more distinct language on a subject of such 
vast concern, there has been engendered a controversy which has progressed from the threshold of 
the history of the Union up to the period of its dissolution." 

" With the territorial possessions of America, even at the date of the Convention, and with all 
that the future promised in the expansion of a system that yet scarcely occupied more than the 
water-slopes of a continent, it might be supposed that the men who formed the Constitution would 
have prepared a full and expUcit article for the government of the territories. That vast and intri- 
cate subject — the power of the General Government over the territories, the true nature of these 
establishments, the status and poUtical privileges of their inhabitants — is absolutely dismissed with 
this bald provision in the Constitution of the United States : 

*' ' New States may be admitted by Congress into this Union.' — Aet. iv., Sec. 3." 

In addition to these flagrant omissions of the Coustitution may be observed a fault, which it was 
Bought to correct in the Constitution of the Confederate States, and which has latterly grown much 
upon pubUc attention. It is that defective construction of the Cabinet, which excludes all the min- 
isters of the government from any participation in the legislative councils. The practical conse- 
quences of this defective organization of the government is, that the relations between the Execu- 
tive and Congress have gradually descended to a back-door communication, in which the Execu- 
tive has lost its dignity, and American pohtics been severely scandalized. The relations of 
the British ministry to Parhament are such that a vote of censure, any night, may change the 
administration of public affairs. There is no such faculty of adaptation in the American sys- 
tem. If tliere is a variance between the Executive and Congress, the former communicates 
with its partisans in that body through the back-door and lobby, and the practical consequences 
are bribery, corruption, and all sorts of devious and unworthy appliances to the legislation of tha 
country. 



THE CONSTITUTION A COMPKOMISE. 



39 



of the jyeojple and the States, each in a different house of Congress ; and on 
this basis of agreement was reared- the Constitution of the United States 
of America. 

The great novelty of this Constitution — the association of the principle 
of State sovereignty with a common government of delegated powers act- 
ing on individuals under specifications of authority, and thus, therefore, 
nou merely a Federal league — is scarcely to be esteemed as an a 2yriori dis- 
covery, and to be ascribed, as American vanity would have it, to the wis- 
dom of our forefathers. The mixed representation of the people and the 
States originated, as we have seen, in a jealousy sprung in the Convention, 
and is better described as the fruit of an accident than the elaborate pro- 
duction of human wisdom. It was a compromise. It simply extricated 
the Convention from a dead-lock of votes between the large and the small 
States as to the rule of representation. But it was of immense import- 
ance as the initial and necessary measure of the combination of State 
Bovereignty with the simple republic. There is reason to suppose that the 
framers of the Constitution did not fully comprehend the importance of 
the great political principle on which they had stumbled, with its long 
train of consequences, and that, as often happens to simple men, they had 
fallen upon a discovery, of the value of which. they had but a dim appre- 
hension. 

The principle involved in the measure of the Convention referred to 
was more fully and perfectly developed in the Amendments, which were the 
fruit of the legislative wisdom of the States, not of that of the Convention, 
and were designed to give a full development and a proper accuracy to 
what was certainly ill-performed work in it. The following Amendments 
were embodied in the official declarations of at least six of the States, 
coupled with their ratification of the Constitution, and made by them the 
conditions precedent to such ratification. 

" The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to 
deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

" The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited 
by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. 

The Union, thus constituted, was not a consolidated nationality. It 
was not a* simple republic, with an appendage of provinces. It was not, 
on the other hand, a mere league of States with no power to reach indi- 
viduals. It was an association of sovereign States with a common author- 
ity qualified to reach individuals within the scope of the powers delegated 
to it by the States, and employed with subjects sufficient to give it for cer- 
tain purposes the eS'ect of an American and national identity. 

At the separation from the British Empire, the people of America pre 
ferred the establishment of themselves into thirteen separate sovereignties 



40 THE LOST CAUSE. 

instead of incorporating themselves into one. To these they looked up foi 
the security of their lives, liberties, and properties. ^The Federal govern- 
ment they formed to defend the whole against foreign nations in time ot 
war, and to defend the lesser States against the ambition of the largerT? 
They were afraid of granting power unnecessarily, lest they should defeat 
the original end of the Union ; lest the powers should prove dangerous to 
the sovereignties of the particular States which the Union was meant tc 
support, and exj^ose the lesser to being swallowed up by the larger. 

The articles of the first Confederation had provided that " the Union 
shall be perj)etual." Notwithstanding this, as we have seen, another con- 
vention subsequently assembled which adopted the present Constitution of 
the United States. Article VII. provided that " the ratifications of nine 
States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution, between 
the States ratifying the same." In effect, this Constitution was ratified at 
first by only a portion of the States composing the previous Union, each 
at diflerent dates and in its sovereign capacity as a State, so that the 
second Union was created by States which " seceded " from the first 
Union, three of which., in their acts of ratification, expressly reserved the 
right to secede again. Virginia, in giving her assent to the Constitution, 
said : " We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected, etc., etc., 
do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make 
known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from 
the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the 
same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." The State of 'New 
York said that " the powers of Government may be re-assumed by the 
people whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness." And the 
State of Rhode Island adopted the same language. 

The reader of American history must guard his mind against the errour 
that the Union was, in any sense, a constitutional revolution, or a procla- 
mation of a new civil polity. The civil institutions of the States were 
already perfect and satisfactory. The Union ■\\'as nothing more than a 
convenience of the States, and had no mission apart from them. It had 
no value as an additional guaranty of personal liberty, nor yet for its prO' 
hibitions of invasion of individual rights. These had been declared with 
equal clearness and vigour five centuries before in the Great Charter at 
Runnymede, had been engrafted upon the Colonial Governments, and were 
the recognized muniments of American liberty. 

The novelty and value of the Federal Constitution was the nice adjust- 
ment of the relations of the State and Federal Governments, by which they 
both became co-ordiBiate and essential parts of one harmonious system ; 
the nice arrangement of the powers of the State and Federal Governments, 
by which was left to the States the exclusive guardianship of their domestic 
affairs, and of the interests of tlieir citizens, and was granted to the Federal 



THE DOCTKINE OF STATE EIGHTS. 4:1 

Government the exclusive control of their interncitional and inter-State rela* 
lions; the economy of the powers of the States with which the Federal 
Government was endowed ; the paucity of subjects and of powers, with- 
drawn from the States, and committed to the Federal Government. It 
was the recognition of the idea of Confederation — the appreciation of the 
value of local self-government. It was the recognition that the States 
were the creators and their powers were inherent, and that the Federal 
Government was the creature and its powers were delegated. 

The two great political schools of America — that of Consolidation and 
that of State Eights — were founded on different estimates of the relations 
of the General Government to the States. All other controversies in the 
political history of the country were subordinate and incidental to this 
great division of parties. "We see, at once, how it involved the question 
of negro-slavery in the South. The agitation of this question was a neces- 
sity of the Consolidation doctrine, which was mainly the JSTorthern theory 
of the government ; for duty being the correlative of power, the central 
government at Washington was responsible for the continuance or exist- 
ence of slavery in proportion to its power over it. On the other hand, the 
State Rights party assented to the logical integrity of the proposition that 
if the government had been consolidated into one, slavery might have been 
abolished, or made universal throughout the whole ; but they claimed 
that the States had retained their sovereignty, for the reason, among 
others, that they desired to avoid giving any pretext to the General Gov 
ernment for attempting to control their internal affairs ; and they, there- 
fore, contended tlrat the Northern party could with no more reason assail 
the domestic institutions of the South than they could attack the similar 
institutions of Cuba and Brazil. 

The difference between the State Rights and Consolidation schools 
may be briefly and sharply stated. The one regarded the Union as a 
compact hehoeen the States: the other regarded the Union as a national 
government set up above and over the States. The first adopted its 
doctrine from the very words of the Constitution ; the seventh article for 
the ratification of the Constitution reading as follows : 



" The ratification of the Contentions of nine States shall be sufficient for the estab- 
lishment of this constitution between the States so ratifying the same." 



The great text of the State Rights school is to be found in the famous 
Kentucky and Yirginia Resolutions of 1798. These resolutions are 
properly to be taken as corollaries drawn from those carefully- worded 
clauses of the Constitution, which were designed to exclude the idea that 
the separate and independent sovereignty of each State was merged into 



43 THE LOST CATJSE. 

one common government and nation. The Virginia resolutions were 
drawn up by Mr. Madison, and the Kentucky resolutions by Mr. Jefferson. 
The first Kentucky resolution was as follows : 

" 1st. Resolved, That the several States comprising the TJnited States of America, are 
not united ou the principle of unlimited submission to their general government, but 
that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of 
amendments thereto, they constituted a general government, for special purposes, dele- 
gated to that government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the resid- 
uary mass of right to their own self-government ; and that whensoever the general gov- 
ernment assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force ; 
that to this compact each State acceded, as a State, and is an integral party ; that this 
government created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the 
estent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion and 
not the Constitution the measure of its powers; but tliat as in all other cases of compact 
among parties having no common judge, each party has an equaLright to judge for itself, 
B8 well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress." 



The most formidable conflict between tliese two schools of politics took 
place during the memorable tariff controversy of 1831-'2, in which Daniel 
Webster of Massachusetts and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the 
most remarkable antitypes of Northern and Southern statesman shi]), 
joined in debate, explored the entire field of controversy, searched every 
feature and piinciple of the government, and left on record a complete 
and exhausting commentary on the whole political system of America. 

Mr. Calhoun was logician enough to see that the Kentucky and 
Virginia Resolutions involved the right of Secession. But he was not 
disposed to insist upon such a remedy. He lived in a time when, outside 
of his own State, there was a strong sentimental attachment to the Union ; 
and he would have been a reckless politician, who would then have openly 
braved popular passion on this subject. Indeed Mr. Calhoun professed, 
and perhaps not insincerely, an ardent love for the Union. In a speech 
to his constituents in South Carolina, he declared that he had "never 
breathed an opposite sentiment," and that he had reason to love the 
Union, when he reflected that nearly half his life had been passed in its 
service, and that whatever public reputation he had acquired was indis- 
Bolubly connected with it. 

It was the task of the great South Carolina politician to find some 
remedy for existing evils short of Disunion. He was unwilling, either to 
violate his own affections or the popular idolatry for the Union ; and at 
the same time he was deeply sensible of the oppression it devolved upon 
the South. The question was, what expedient could be found to accom- 
modate the overruling anxiety to perpetuate the Union, and the necessity 
Df checking the steady advance of Northern aggression and sectional 



MK. Calhoun's plan fok saving the union. 43 

dominaiion in it. Mr. Callioiin did succeed in accommodating these two 
considerations. He hit upon one of the most beautiful and ingenious 
theories in American politics to preserve and perfect the Union, and to 
introduce into it tliat principle of adaptability to circmnstances, which is 
the lirst virtue of wise governments. He proposed that in cases of serious 
dispute between any State and the General Government, the mattei' 
should be referred to a convention of all the States for its final and con- 
clusive determination. He thus proposed, instead of destroying the Union, 
to erect over it an august guardianship, and instead of bringing it to the 
tribunal of popular passion, to arraign it only before the assembled sov- 
ereign States which had created it. 

Mr. Calhoun abundantly explained his doctrine. " Should," said he, 
" the General Government and a State come into conflict, we have a 
higher remedy : the power which called the General Government into 
existence, which gave it all of its authority, and can enlarge, contract, or 
abolish its powers at its pleasure, may be invoked. The States them- 
selves may be appealed to, three-fourths of which, in fact, form a power, 
whose decrees are the Constitution itself, and whose voice can silence all 
discontent. The utmost extent tlien of the power is, that a State acting 
in its sovereign capacity, as one of the parties to the constitutional com- 
pact, may compel the government, created by that compact, to submit a 
question touching its infraction to the parties who created it." He in- 
sisted with plain reason that his doctrine, so far from being anarchical or 
revolutionary, was " the only solid foundation of our system and of the 
Union itself." His explanation of the true nature of the Union was a model 
of perspicuity, and an exposition of the profoundest statesmanship. In 
opposition to a certain vulgar and superficial opinion, that the State insti- 
tutions of America were schools of provincialism, he held the doctrine that 
they were in no sense hostile to the Union, or malignant in their char- 
acter ; that they interpreted the true glory of America ; and that he was 
the wisest statesman who would constantly observe " the sacred distribu- 
tion " of power between the General Government and the States, and 
bind up the rights of the States with the common welfare. 

It is a curious instance of Northern misrepresentation in politics and 
of their cunning in fastening a false political nomenclature upon t^e South, 
that the ingenious doctrine of Mr. Calhoun, which was eminently con- 
servative, and directly addressed to saving the TJnion^ should have been 
entitled " Nullification," and its author branded as a Disunionist. Unfor- 
tunately, the world has got most of its opinions of Southern parties and 
men from the shallow pages of Northern books ; and it will take it long 
.0 learn the lessons that the system of negro servitude in the South was 
not '■'■ Slavery ;''^ that John 0. Calhoun was not a '•'■Disunionist;''^ and 
that the war of 1861, brought on by Northern insurgents against the 



44 THE LOST CAUSE. 

autliority of the Constitution, was not a " Southern rebellion.''^ Names are 
apparently slight things; but thej create the first impression ; tliej solicit 
the sympathies of the vulgar ; and they often create a cloud of prejudice 
which the greatest exertions of intelligence find it impossible wholly to 
dispel. But it is not the place here to analyze at length the party terms 
of America ; and the proper definition of the words we have referred to as 
falsely applied to the South will appear, and will be easily apprehended 
in the general argument and context of our narrative. • 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE FEDERAL PlfflSrCIPLE ULTIMATELY FATAL TO THE TTNION, — OTHER CAUSES OF DISUNION. 

THE " SECTIONAL ANIMOSITY." — THE GEOGEAPHIOAL LINE IN THE UNION. HOW THH 

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH PRODUCED TWO DISTINCT COMMUNITIES 
INSTEAD OF PvIVAL PARTIES WITHIN ONE BODY POLITIC. — THE THEORY OF A POLITICAL 

NORTH AND A POLITICAL SOUTH. ITS EARLY RECOGNITION IN THE CONVENTION OF 1787. 

— DECLARATION OF MADISON. MR. PINCKNEy's REMARK. HOW THE SAME THEORY 

"WAS INVOLVED IN THE CONSTITUTION. — THE " TREATY-CLAUSE " BETWEEN NORTH AND 
SOUTH. — THE UNION NOT THE BOND OF DIVERSE STATES, BUT THE ROUGH COMPAN- 
IONSHIP OF TWO PEOPLES. — GEN. SULLIVAN's COMPLAINT TO WASHINGTON. — THE 
SLAVERY QUESTION, AN INCIDENT OF THE SECTIONAL ANIMOSITY. — NOT AN INDE- 
PENDENT CONTROVERSY, OR A MORAL DISPUTE. POLITICAL HISTORY OF NEGRO SLAVERY 

IN THE SOUTH. — HOW IT BECAME THE SUBJECT OF DISPUTE. THE HARTFORD CONVEN- 
TION. THE MISSOURI LINE, THE PRELIMINARY TRACE OF DISUNION. DECLARATION OF 

THOMAS JEFFERSON. WHY THE NORTH DEFAMED " THE PECULIAR INSTITUTION " OF 

THE SOUTH. — GREAT BENEFITS OF THIS INSTITUTION AND ITS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 

WORLD. "slavery" NOT THE PROPER TERM FOR THE INSTITUTION OF LABOUR IN 

THE SOUTH. — THE SLAVERY QUESTION SIGNIFICANT ONLY OF A CONTEST FOR POLITICAL 

POWER. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN POPULATIONS. THE 

ANTE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. — TRACES OF THE MODERN " YANKEE." — HOW SLAVERY 
ESTABLISHED A PECULIAR CIVILIZATION IN THE SOUTH. — ITS BAD AND GOOD EFFECTS 

SUMMED UP. COARSENESS OF NORTHERN CIVILIZATION. NO LANDED GENTRY IN THE 

NORTH. SCANTY APPEARANCE OF THE SOUTHERN COUNTRY. THE SENTIMENTS AND 

MANNERS OF ITS PEOPLE. — " AMERICAN EXAGGERATION " A PECULIARITY OF THE NORTH- 
ERN MIND. — SOBRIETY OF THE SOUTH. — HOW THESE QUALITIES WERE DISPLAYED IN THE 
NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN ESTIMATIONS OF THE UNION. — " STATE RIGHTS" THE 
FOUNDATION OF THE MORAL DIGNITY OF THE UN^ON. — OALHOUN's PICTURE OF THE 
UNION. A NOBLE VISION NEVER REALIZED. 

Although the American Union, as involving the Federal principle, 
contained in itself an element ultimately fatal to its form of government, 
it is not to be denied that by careful and attentive statesmanship a 
rupture might have been long postponed. We have already briefly seen 
that, at a most remarkable period in American history, it was proposed 
by the great political scholar of his times — John C. Calhoun — to modify 
the Federal principle of the Union and to introduce an ingenious chock 



46 THE LOST CAUSE. 

upon its tendencies to controversy — a measure that might long have 
extended the term of the Union, and certainly would have realized a very 
beautiful idea of political association. 

But we must notice here another cause of disunion that supervened 
apon that of Federal incoherence, and rapidly divided the country. 
It was that Sectional Animosity, far more imposing than any mere dis- 
cord of States, inasmuch as it put in opposition, as it were, two distinct 
nations on a geographical line, that by a single stroke divided the country, 
ftnd thus summarily effected what smaller differences would have taken 
long to accomplish. 

We have elsewhere briefly referred to the divisions of population 
between the IS'orthern and Southern States, marked as they were by 
strong contrasts between the characters of the people of each. Had these 
divisions existed only in a contracted space of country', they might have 
resulted in nothing more than the production of parties or the formation 
of classes. But extending as they did over the space of a continent, these 
divisions ceased to be political parties or classes of one community, and 
really existed in the condition of distinct communities or nations. A 
recent English writer has properly and acutely observed : " In order to 
master the difficulties of American politics, it will be verj- important to 
realize the fact that we have to consider, not the action of rival parties or 
opposing interests within the limits of one body politic, but practically 
that of two distinct communities or peoples, speaking indeed a common 
language, and united by a federal bond, but opposed in principles and 
interests, alienated in feeling, and jealous rivals in the pursuit of political 
power." 

No one can read aright the history of America, unless in the light of 
a North and a South : two political aliens existing in a Union imperfectly 
defined as a confederation of States. If insensible or forgetful of this 
theory, he is at once involved in an otherwise inexplicable mass of facts, 
and will in vain attempt an analysis of controversies, apparently the most 
various and confused. 

The Sectional Animosity, which forms the most striking and persistent 
feature in the history of the American States, may be dated certainly as 
far back as 1T87. In the Convention which formed the Constitution, 
Mr. Madison discovered beneath the controversy between the large a,nd 
small States another clashing of interests. He declared that the States 
were divided into different interests by other circumstances as well as by 
their difference of size ; the most material of which resulted partly from 
climate, but principally from the effects of their having or not having 
slaves. " These two causes," he said, " concurred in forming the great 
division of interests in the United States ; " and " if any defensive power 
were necessary it ought to be mutually given to these two sections." In 



CONFLICT BETWEEN NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN INTERESTS. 47 

the South Carolina Convention wliicli ratified the Constitution, Gen 
Pineknej spoke of the difference between the inhabitants of the Northern 
and Southern States. lie explained : " When I say Southern, I mean 
Maryland and the States southward of her. There, we may trnly observe 
that nature has drawn as strong marks of distinction in the habits and 
manners of the people, as she lias in her climates and productions." 

There was thus early recognized in American history a political North 
and a political Soutli ; the division being coincident with tlic line that 
sepai'ated the slave-hokling from the non-slave-holding States. Indeed, 
the existence of these two parties and the line on wliich it was founded 
was recognized in the very frame-work of the Constitution. That pro- 
vision of this instrument which admitted slaves into the rule of representa- 
tion (in the proportion of three-fifths), is significant of a conflict between 
North and South ; and as a compact between the slave-hokling and non- 
slave-holding interests, it may be taken as a compromise between sections, 
or even, in a broader and more philosophical view, as a treaty between 
two nations of opposite civilizations. For we shall see that the distinction 
of North and South, apparently founded on slavery and traced by lines 
of climate, really went deeper to tht very elements of the civilization of 
each ; and that the Union, instead of being the bond of diverse States, is 
rather to be described, at a certain period of its history, as the forced 
alliance and rough companionship of two very different peoples. 

When Gen. Sullivan complained to Washington that there was a party 
in New England opposed to his nomination as minister of war, because 
they considered he had " apostatized from the true New England faith, by 
sometimes voting with the Southern States," he declared thus early the 
true designs of the North to get sectional control of the government. 

The slavery question is not to be taken as an independent controversy 
in American politics. It was not a moral dispute. It was the mere inci- 
dent of a sectional animosity, the causes of which lay far beyond the 
domain of morals. Slavery furnished a convenient line of battle between 
the disputants ; it was the most prominent ground of distinction between 
the two sections ; it was, therefore, naturally seized upon as a subject of 
controversy, became the dominant theatre of hostilities, and was at last so 
conspicuous and violent, that occasion was mistaken for cause, and what 
was merely an incident came to be regarded as the main subject of con- 
troversy. 

The institution of slavery, as the most prominent cause of discinction 
between the civilizations or social autonomies of North and South, waa 
naturally bound up in the Sectional Animosity. As that animosity pro- 
gressed, the slavery question developed. This explains, indeed, what is 
most curious in the political history of slavery — namely that the early 
part of that history is scarcely more than an enumeration of dates aud 



48 THE LOST CAUSE. 

measures, whicli were taken as matters of course, and passed without dis- 
pute. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 was passed without a division in 
the Senate, and by a vote of forty-eight to seven in the House. Louisiana 
and Florida, slave-holding territories, were organized without agitation. 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama were admitted into the 
Union without any question as to their domestic institutions. The action 
of Congress, with respect to the north-west territory, was based upon a 
pre-existing anti-slavery ordinance, and had no significance. There was 
nothing or but little in the early days of the Union, to betoken the wild 
and violent controversy on slavery, that was to sweep the country like a 
storm and strew it with scenes of horrour. 

With the jealousy of Southern domination came the slavery agitation ; 
proving clearly enough its subordination to the main question, and that 
what was asserted as a matter of conscience, and attempted to be raised to 
the position of an independent controversy, was but part of or an attach- 
ment to an animosity that went far below the surface of local institutions. 
The Hartford Convention, in 1814, which originated in jealousy of the 
political power of the South, proposed to strike down the slave represen- 
tation in Congress, and to have the representation conformed to the num- 
ber of free persons in the Union. A few years later, the country was more 
distinctly arrayed into two sectional parties, struggling for supremacy with 
regard to the slavery question. The legislation on the admission of Mis- 
souri in 1820, by whicli the institution of slavery was bounded by a line 
of latitude, indicated the true nature of the slavery conti-oversy, and sim- 
ply revealed what had all along existed : a political I^orth and a political 
South. It was here that we find the initial point of that war of sections 
which raged in America for forty years, and at last culminated in an 
appeal to arms. The Missouri legislation was the preliminary trace of dis- 
union. " A geographical line," wrote Mr. Jelferson, " coinciding with a 
marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the 
angry passions of men will not be obliterated ; and every new irritation 
will make it deeper and deeper." 

The ITortli naturally found or imagined in slavery the leading cause of 
the distinctive civilization of the South, its higher sentimentalism, and its 
superior refinements of scholarship and manners. It revenged itself on 
the cause, diverted its envy in an attack upon slavery, and defamed the 
institution as the relic of barbarism and the sum of all villainies. But, 
whatever may have been the defamation of the institution of slavery, no 
man can write its history without recognizing contributions and naming 
prominent results beyond the domain of controversy. It bestowed on the 
world's commerce in a half-century a single product whose annual value 
was two hundred millions of dollars. It founded a system of industry by 
which l^our and capital were identified in interest, and capital therefore 



NO CONGENIALITY BETWEEN CAVALIERS AND PDEITANS 49 

protected labour. It exhibited the picture of a land crowned with abun- 
dance, where starvation was unknown, where order was preserved by an 
unpaid police ; and where many fertile regions accessible only to the labour 
of the African were brought into usefulness, and blessed the world with 
their productions. 

We shall not enter upon the discussion of the moral question of slav- 
ery. But we may suggest a doubt here whether that odious term " slav- 
ery," which has been so long imposed, by the exaggeration of Northern 
writers, upon the judgment and sympathies of the world, is properly ap- 
plied to that system of servitude in the South which was really the mildest 
in the world ; which did not rest on acts of debasement and disenfranchise- 
ment, but elevated the African, and was in the interest of human improve- 
ment ; and which, by the law of the land, protected the negro in life and 
limb, and in many personal rights, and, by the practice of the system, 
bestowed upon him a sum of individual indulgences, which made him alto- 
gether the most striking type in the world of cheerfulness and content- 
ment. But it is not necessary to prolong this consideration.* For, we 
repeat, the slaveiy question was not a moral one in the North, unless, per- 
haps, with a few thousand ijersons of disordered conscience. It was signifi- 
cant only of a contest for political power, and afforded nothing more than 
a convenient ground of dispute between two parties, who represented not 
two moral theories, but hostile sections and opposite civilizations. 

In the ante-revolutionary period, the differences between the popula- 
tions of the Northern and Southern colonies had already been strongly 
developed. The early colonists did not bear with them from the mother- 
country to the shores of the New World any greater degree of congeniality 
than existed among them at home. They had come not only from dif- 
ferent stocks of population, but from different feuds in religion and poli- 
tics. There could be no congeniality between the Puritan exiles who 
established themselves upon the cold and rugged and cheerless soil of New 
England, and the Cavaliers who sought the brighter climate of the South, 
and drank in their baronial halls in Virginia confusion to roundheads and 
regicides. 

In the early history of the Northern colonists we find no slight traces 



* It may not be improper to note here a very sententious defence of the moral side of slavery 
occurring in a speech delivered, in 1856, by Senator Toombs of Georgia, in the Tremont Temple at 
6oston. It is briefly this : " The white is the superior race, and the black the inferior ; and sub- 
ordination, with or without law, will be the status of the African in this mixed society ; and, there- 
Core, it is the interest of both, and especially of the blacli race, and of the whole society, that tliis 
status should be fixed, controlled, and protected by law." 

The whole ground is covered by these two propositions: that subordination is the necessary 
«ondition of the black man ; and that the so-called " slavery " in the South was but the preciaa 
idjustment of this subordination by law 
4 



50 THE LOST CAUSE. 

of the modern Yankee ; although it remained for those subsequent influ- 
ences which educate nations as well as individuals to complete that char- 
acter, to add new vices to it, and to give it its full development. But tho 
intolerance of the Puritan, the painful thrift of the Northern colonists, their 
external forms of piety, their jaundiced legislation, their convenient mor- 
als, their lack of the sentimentalism which makes up the half of modern 
civilization, and their unremitting hunt after selfish aggrandizement 
are traits of character which are yet visible in their descendants.* On the 
other hand, the colonists of Virginia and the Carolinas were from the first 
distinguished for their polite manners, their fine sentiments, their attach- 
ment to a sort of feudal life, their landed gentry, their love of field-sports 
and dangerous adventure, and the prodigal and improvident aristocracy 
that dispensed its stores in constant rounds of hosj)itality and gaiety. 

Slavery established in the South a peculiar and noble type of civiliza- 
tion. It was not without attendant vices ; but the virtues which followed 
in its train were numerous and peculiar, and asserted the general good 
effect of the institution on the ideas and manners of the South. If habits 
of command sometimes degenerated into cruelty and insolence ; yet, in the 
greater number of instances, they inculcated notions of chivalry, polished 
the manners and produced many noble and generous virtues. If the relief 
of a large class of whites from the demands of physical labour gave occa- 
sion in some instances for idle and dissolute lives, yet at the same time it 
afforded opportunity for extraordinary culture, elevated the standards of 

* It appears that in the revolutionary war Gen. Washington acquired a singular insight into the 
New England character. From his camp at Cambridge, in 17Y5, he wrote, in a private letter to 
Richard Henry Lee, an accoimt of the New England part of his army, that reminds one of incidenta 
of 18Gl-'5. We append an extract from this letter, which remained for many years in the Lee 
family, and was only brought to light during the recent war : 

«c # » « J g^]^I^it it, therefore, to your consideration, whether there is, or is not, a propriety 
in that resolution of the Congress which leaves the ultimate appointment of all oflScers below the rank 
of general to the governments where the regiments originated, now the army is become Continental ? 
To me, it appears improper in two points of view — first, it is giving that power and weight to an 
individual Colony which ought of right to belong to the whole. Then it damps the spirit and ardour 
of volunteers from all but the four New England Governments, as none but their people have the 
least chance of getting into ofiSce. Would it not be better, therefore, to have the warrants, which 
the Commander-in-Chief is authorized to give pro tempore, approved or disapproved by the Conti- 
nental Congress, or a committee of their body, which I should suppose in any long recess must 
always sit ? In this case, every gentleman will stand an equal chance of being promoted, according 
to his merit : in the other, all oflSces will be confined to the inhabitants of the four New England- 
Governments, which, in my opinion, is impohtic to a degree. I have made a pretty good slam 
among such kind of officers as the Massachusetts Government abounds in since I came to this camp, 
having broken one colonel and two captains for cowardly behaviour in the action on Bunker's HilL 
two captains for drawing more provisions and pay than they had men in their company, and one foi 
being absent from his post when the enemy appeared there and burnt a house just by it. Beside* 
these, I have at this time one colonel, one major, one captain, and two subalterns under arrest foi 
trial. In short, I spare none, and yet fear it will not all do, as these people seem to be too inatteo 
tive to everything but their interest." 



THE NORTH JEALOUS OF SOUTHEBN SUPEEIOEITT 51 

Bcholarsliip in the South, enlarged and emancipated social intercourse, and 
established schools of individual refinement. The South had an element 
in its society — a landed gentry — which the Korth envied, and for which 
its substitute was a coarse ostentatious aristocracy that smelt of the trade, 
and that, however it cleansed itself and aped the elegance of the South, 
and packed its houses with fine furniture, could never entirely subdue a 
sneaking sense of its inferiority. There is a singularly bitter hate which 
is inseparable from a sense of inferiority ; and every close observer of 
Northern society has discovered how there lurked in every foi-m of hos- 
tility to the South the conviction that the Northern man, however dis- 
guised with ostentation, was coarse and inferiour in comparison with the 
aristocracy and chivalry of the South. 

The civilization of the North was coarse and materialistic. That of the 
South was scant of shows, but highly refined and sentimental. The South 
was a vast agricultural country ; waste lands, forest and swamps often 
gave to the eye a dreary picture ; there were no thick and intricate nets 
of internal improvements to astonish and bewilder the traveller, no coun- 
try picturesque with towns and villages to please his vision. Northern 
men ridiculed this apparent scantiness of the South, and took it as an evi- 
dence of inferiority. But this was the coarse judgment of the surface 
of things. The agricultural pursuits of the South fixed its features; and 
however it might decline in the scale of gross prosperity, its people were 
trained in the highest civilization, were models of manners for the whole 
country, rivalled the sentimentalism of the oldest countries of Europe, 
established the only schools of honour in America, and presented a strik- 
ing contrast in their well-balanced character to the conceit and giddiness of 
the Northern people. 

Foreigners have made a curious and unpleasant observation of a cer- 
tain exaggeration of the American mind, an absurd conceit that was never 
done asserting the unapproachable excellence of its country in all things. 
The Washington affair was the paragon of governments ; the demagogical 
institutions of America were the best under the sun ; the slip-shod litera- 
ture of the country, the smattered education of the people were the foci 
of the world's enlightenment ; and, in short, Americans were the lords 
of creation. De Tocqueville observed : " the Americans are not very 
remote from believing themselves to belong to a distinct race of man- 
kind." 

But it is to be remarked that this boastful disposition of mind, this 
exaggerated conceit was peculiarly Yankee. It belonged to the garish 
civilization of the North. It was Daniel Webster who wrote, in a diplo- 
matic paper, that America was " the only great republican power." It 
was Yankee orators who established the Fourth-of-July school of rhetoric, 
exalted the American eagle, and spoke of the Union as the last, best gift 



62 THE LOST CAUSE. 

to man. This afflatus had but little place among the people of the South. 
Their civilization was a quiet one ; and their characteristic as a people has 
always been that sober estimate of the value of men and things, which, aa 
in England, appears to be the best evidence of a substantial civilization 
and a real enlightenment. Sensations, excitements on slight causes, fits 
of fickle admiration, manias in society and fashion, a regard for magnitude, 
display and exaggeration, all these indications of a superficial and restless 
civilization abounded in the North and were peculiar to its people. The 
sobriety of the South was in striking contrast to these exhibitions, and was 
interpreted by the vanity of the North as insensibility and ignorance, when 
it was, in fact, the mark of the superiour civilization. 

This contrast between the Northern and Southern minds is vividly 
illustrated in the difierent ideas and styles of their worship of that great 
American idol — the Union. In the North there . never was any lack of 
rhetorical fervour for the Union ; its praises were sounded in every note 
of tumid literature, and it was familiarly entitled " the glorious." But 
the North worshipped the Union in a very low, commercial sense ; it 
was a source of boundless profit ; it was productive of tariff's and boun- 
ties ; and it had been used for years as the means of sectional aggran- 
dizement. 

The South regarded the Union in a very different light. It estimated 
it at its real value, and although quiet and precise in its appreciation, and 
not given to transports, there is this remarkable assertion to be made : 
that the moral veneration of the Union was peculiarly a sentiment of the 
South and entirely foreign to the Northern mind. It could not be other- 
wise, looking to the different political schools of tl\e two sections. In the 
North, the doctrine of State Rights was generally rejected for the preva- 
lent notion that America was a single democracy. To the people of the 
North the Union was therefore a mere geographical name, a political 
designation which had no peculiar claims upon their affection. In the 
South the Union was differently regarded. State Rights was the most 
marked peculiarity of the politics of the Southern people ; and it was this 
doctrine that gave the Union its moral dignity, and was the only really 
possible source of sentimental attachment to it. The South bowed before 
neither an idol of gain, nor the shadow of a name. She Avorshipped that 
picture of the Union drawn by John C. Calhoun : a peculiar association 
in which sovereign States were held by high considerations of good faith ; 
by the exchanges of equity and comity ; by the noble attractions of social 
order ; by the enthused sympathies of a common destiny of power, honour 
and renown. But, alas ! this picture existed only in the imagination ; the 
idea of Mr. Calhoun was never realized ; and the South, torn from its 
moral and sentimental attachment to the Union, found that it had no other 
claims upon its aff'ection. 



THE UNION OPPRESSIVE TO THE SOUTH. 53 

To understand how tlie Union became a benefit to tlie North and 
resulted in the oppression of the South, it is only necessary to compare the 
two sections in the elements of prosperity, and to explore the sources of 
those elements as far as they can be traced within the domain of the 
Union. 



I 



CHAPTEE III. 

UATEBIAL DECLINE OF THE SOUTH IN THE UNION. — SHIFTING OF THE NUMBEES AND ENTER- 
PKISE OF THE COUNTEY FEOM THE SOUTHEEN TO THE NOETHEEN STATES, — TIEGINIA's 
BANK AMONG THE STATES AT THE TIME OF THE EEVOLUTION. — COMMEECIAL DISTRESS 
OF THE STATES AFTER THE EEVOLUTION. — HOW NEW ENGLAND SUFFERED. — THE SOUTH 
THEN RECKONED THE SEAT OF FUTURE EMPIRE. — THE PEOPLE AND STRENGTH OF AMERICA 
BEARING SOUTHWARDLY. — EMIGRATION TO THE SOUTH. — KENTUCKY AND THE VALE8 
OF FRANKLAND. — VIRGINIA'S PROSPERITY. — HEE EARLY LAND SYSTEM. — THE CHESA- 
PEAKE. — ALEXANDRIA. — GEORGE WASHINGTON'S GREAT COMMEECIAL PEOJECT. — TWO 
PICTURES OF VIRGINIA: 1789 AND 1829. — AN EXAMPLE OF THE DECLINE OF THE SOUTH 

IN MATERIAL PEOSPERITY. THIS DECLINE NOT TO BE ATTRIBUTED TO SLAVERY. — ITS 

TRUE CAUSES. — EFFECT OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE ON THE TIDES OF EMIGRATION. — 
UNEQUAL FEDERAL LEGISLATION AS A CAUSE OF THE SECTIONAL LAPSE OF THE SOUTH 
IN THE UNION. — THE KEY TO THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF AMERICA. — A GREAT DEFECT 
OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. — POPULATION AS AN ELEMENT OF PROSPERITY AND 
POWEE. — HOW THIS WAS THROWN INTO THE NORTHERN SCALE. — TWO SECTIONAL MEAS- 
URES. — COMPARISONS OF SOUTHERN EEPEESENTATION IN OONGEESS AT THE DATE OF THE 

CONSTITUTION AND IN THE YEAR 1860. — SECTIONAL DOMINATION OF THE NOETH. A 

PEOTECTIVE TARIFF. — " THE BILL OF ABOMINATIONS." — SENATOR BENTON ON THE 
TARIFF OF 1828. — HIS RETROSPECT OF THE PROSPERITY OF THE SOUTH. — HISTOEY OF 
THE AMERICAN TARIFFS. — TAEIFF OF 1833, A DECEITFUL COMPEOMISE. — OTHER MEAS- 
URES OF NORTHERN AGGRANDIZEMENT. — INGENUITY OF NORTHERN AVARICE. — WHY THE 
SOUTH COULD NOT USE HEE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE IN THE NORTH TO PROTECT HER 
INTERESTS. — THIS ALLIANCE ONE ONLY FOE PARTY PURPOSES. — ITS VALUE. — ANALYSIS 
OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN THE NORTH. — THE SOUTH UNDER THE RULE OF A NU 
MERICAL MAJORITY. — ARRAY OF THAT MAJORITY ON A SECTIONAL LINE NECESSARILY 
FATAL TO THE UNION. — WHEN AND WHY THE SOUTH SHOULD ATTEMPT DISUNION. 

It is not unusual in countries of large extent for the tides of popula- 
tion and enterprise to cliange their directions and establish new seats of 
power and prosperity. But the change which in little more than a 
generation after the American Revolution shifted the numbers and enter- 
prise of the country from the Southern to the Northern States was so 
distinctly from one side of a line to the other, that we must account such 
the result of certain special and well-defined causes. To discover these 



EARLY PKOSPERITY OF THE SOUTH. 55 

causes, and to explain that most remarkable phenomenon — the sharply- 
defined transfer of population, enterprise, and commercial empire from the 
South to the North — we shall pass rapidly in review a number of years 
in the history of the American States. 

About the revolutionary period Virginia held the front rank of the 
States. Patrick Henry designated her as " the most mighty State in the 
Union." " Does not Virginia," exclaimed this orator, " surpass every 
State in the Union in the number of inhabitants, extent of territory, 
felicity of position, in affluence and wealth ? " Her arms had been singu 
larly illustrious in the seven years' war ; and no State had contributed to 
this great contest a larger measure of brilliant and patriotic service^ 
James Monroe, himself a soldier of the Revolution, declared : " Virginia 
braved all dangers. From Quebec to Boston, from Boston to Savannah 
she shed the blood of her sons." 

The close of the Revolution was followed by a distress of trade that 
involved all of the American States. Indeed, they found that their inde- 
pendence, commercially, had been very dearly purchased : that the 
British Government was disposed to revenge itself for the ill-success of its 
arms by the most severe restrictions on the trade of the States, and to 
affect all Europe against any commercial negotiations with them. The 
tobacco of Virginia and Maryland was loaded down with duties and 
prohibitions ; the rice and indigo of the Carolinas suffered similarly ; but 
in New England the distress was out of all proportion to what was 
experienced in the more fortunate regions of the South, where the fertility 
ot the soil ^as always a ready and considerable compensation for the 
oppression of taxes and commercial imposts. Before the Revolution, 
Great Britain had furnished markets for more than three-fourths of the 
exports of the eight Northern States. These were now almost actually 
closed to them. Massachusetts complained of the boon of independence, 
when she could no longer find a market for her fish and oil of fish, which 
at this time constituted almost wholly the exports of that region, which 
has since reached to such insolence of prosperity, and now abounds with 
the seats of opulence. The most important branch of New England 
industry — the whale fisheries — had almost perished ; and driven out of 
employment, and distressed by an unkind soil, there were large masses 
of the descendants of the Puritans ready to move wherever better fortune 
invited them, and the charity of equal laws w^ould tolerate them. 

In these circumstances it is not surprising that, in the early stages of 
the Federal Republic, the South should have been reckoned the seat of 
future empire. There was a steady flow of population from the sterile 
regions of the North to the rich but uncultivated plains of the South. 
In the Convention that formed the Constitution Mr. Butler, a delegate 
from New England, had declared, with pain, that " the people and 



56 THE LOST CAUSB, 

strength of America were evidently bearing sontliwardly and southwest* 
wardly." As the sectional line was then supposed to run, there were 
only five States on the southern side of it : eight on the northern. In the 
House of Eepresentatives the North had thirtj^-six votes ; the Soutli only 
twenty-nine. But the most persistent statement made in favour of the 
Constitution in Virginia and other Southern States, was, that though the 
North, at the date of this instrument, might have a majority in the 
representation, the increase of population in the South would, in the 
course of a few years, change it in their favour. So general and imposing 
was the belief that the Southern States were destined to hold the larger 
share of the numbers and wealth of America. And not without reason 
was such a prospect indulged at this time. The people of New England 
were then emigrating to Kentucky, and even farther to the South and 
Southwest. In vain the public men of the North strove to drive back 
the flow of population upon the unoccupied lands of Maine, then a 
province of Massachusetts. Land was offered there for a dollar an acre. 
But the inducement of even such a price was insufhcient to draw the 
emigrant to the inhospitable regions of the Penobscot. There was the 
prosperous agriculture to tempt him that had made Virginia the foremost 
of the British colonies. There were the fertile and undulating prairie 
lands of Kentucky to invite and reward his labours. Tliere were the 
fruitful vales of Frankland — a name then given to the western district 
of North Carolina — to delight his vision with the romances of picturesque 
prosperity. To these regions the Northern emigration flowed with steady 
piogress, if not with the rapidity and spirit of a new adventure. 

Virginia did not need the contributions of numbers or of capital 
moving from the North after the Revolution, to make her the foremost 
State of the Union. She was already so. In 1788, her population was 
estimated at more than half a million, and her military force at fifty 
thousand militiamen. Her early land system, in which the soil was cul- 
tivated by tenants, and thus most effectively divided for labour, had j)ut 
her agricultural interest far above that of the other States, and during the 
colonial period had drawn to her borders the best class of population in 
America — that of the yeomanry of England. The Chesapeake was the 
chosen resort of the trader. Alexandria, then the principal commercial 
city of Virginia, was thought to hold the keys to the trade of a continent. 
The election of George Washington to the Presidency of the United 
States interrupted him in a project, by which he hoped to imite the Bay 
of Chesapeake, by her two great arms, the James and Potomac rivers, 
with the Ohio, and eventually to drain the commerce of the Lakes into 
the same great basin, and, extending yet further the vision of this enter- 
[U'ise, to make Alexandria the eastern depot of the fur trade. Everywhere 
was blazoned the prosperity of Virginia ; and, indeed, in coming into tlio 



HER DECLINE NOT CAUSED BY SLAVERY. 57 

[Juion, many of her public men had said that she sacrificed an empire in 
itself for a common concern. 

Of the decline of the South, after the early periods of the government, 
in popalation and industry, Virginia affords the most striking example. 
To show the general fact and to illustrate especially the decline of that 
State, M'e may take two pictures of Virginia, placing an interval between 
them of scarcely more than one generation of men. 

At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, Virginia was in the 
heyday of prosperity. Her system of tenant farms spread before the eye 
a picture of thrifty and affluent agriculture. In 1800 she had a great 
West Indian and a flourishing European trade. She imported for herself 
and for a good part of North Carolina and, perhaps, of Tennessee. She 
presented a picture in which every element of prosperity combined with 
lively effect. 

In 1S29 it was estimated in her State Convention that her lands were 
worth only half what they were in 1817. Her slave property had pro- 
portionally declined, and negro men could be bought for one hundred and 
fifty dollars each. Her landed system had become extinct. Regions 
adapted to the growth of the grasses were converted into pasture lands. 
The bnsy farms disappeared ; they were consolidated to make cattle-ranges 
and sheep-walks. Where once the eye was entertained with the lively 
and cheerful scenes of an abundant prosperity it looked over wasted fields, 
stunted forests of secondary growth of pine and cedar, and mansions 
standing partly in ruins or gloomily closed in tenantless silence. 

The contrast between such prosperity and such decay, witnessed in 
every part of the South, though not perhaps to the extent displayed in 
Virginia, and taking place within a short and well-defined period of time, 
demands explanations and strongly invites the curiosity of the historical 
inquirer. And yet the explanation is easy when we regard obvious facts, 
instead of betaking ourselves to remote and refined speculations after the 
usual fashion of the curious, with respect to striking and remarkable phe- 
nomena. 

It has been a persistent theory with ISTorthern writers that the singular 
decline of the South in population and industry, while their own section 
was constantly ascending the scale of prosperity, is to be ascribed to the 
peculiar institution of negro slavery. But this is the most manifest non- 
sense that was ever spread on the pages of history. Negro slavery had 
no point of coincidence with the decline referred to ; it had existed in 
the South from the beginning ; it had been compatible with her early 
prosperity extending over the ]jeriod of the Constitution ; it had existed in 
Virginia when Virginia was most flourishing. But the fallacy of the 
anti-slaveiy argument is not only apparent in the light of the early liis- 
tory of America : examples in other parts of the. world emphasize it, and 



58 THE LOST CAUSE. 

add to the illustration. Cuba acd Brazil are standing examples cf the 
contributions of negro slavery to agricultural wealth and material pros- 
perity ; while on the other hand Jamaica affords the example of decline in 
these respects from the very abolition of this institution of labour. 

The true causes of that sectional lapse, in which the South became by 
far the inferiour part of the American Union in every respect of material 
prosperity, will naturally be looked for in the peculiar history of that 
Union. We shall make this discovery of adequate causes in not more 
than two prominent considerations, having reference to the geographical 
and political history of the American States. 

1. The Louisiana Purchase, although opposed by the ISTorth, on the 
ground that it was an acquisition to the territorial and political power 
of the South, was mainly instrumental in turning the scale of population 
as between the two sections. It opened the Mississippi River ; turned the 
tide of emigration to its upper branches ; opened a new empire — the 
Northwest, soon to become known as " the Great West ; " and drew to 
these distant fields much of the numbers and wealth that had before 
tended to the South and Southwest for the rewards of enterprise. 

2. But by far the more important cause of that decline we have 
marked in the South was the unequal legislation of Congress and the con- 
stant discrimination of the benefits of the Union as between the two 
sections of the country. 

And here in this consideration it is not too much to say tliat we find 
the key to the whole political history of America. The great defect of the 
American Constitution was that it rested too much power upon the 
fluctuating basis of population. In the Convention that formed this 
instrument there were Southern members who made light of the Northern 
majority in representation. They thought the next census would set all 
right. But the Northern party understood the advantage of getting the 
control of the government in the outset ; they strained every nerve to gain 
it ; and they have never since relinquished it. 

Population, where the soil is not too densely peopled, and yields a good 
average of production, is the obvious source of national wealth, which, 
in turn, increases population. This great productive power was thrown 
into the Northern scale. By the two measures, of the exclusion of slavery 
from the Territories and the interdiction of the slave trade. Congress 
turned the tides of population in favour of the North, and confirmed in 
the Northern majority the means of a sectional domination. 

What efi"ect this turn in the population had upon the political power 
of the South in the Union is at once seen in the startling changes of her 
representation in the lower house of Congress. The population of the 
South had, of course, largely increased, since the date of the Kevolution ; 
but it had not been able to keep up with the changes in the ratio of 



rNJTTETOUS SECTIONAL LEGISLATION. 69 

representation. This had been at first 33,000 ; in the census of 1860, it 
was raised to 127,381. In the first House of Representatives, Virginia 
had ten members to six from New York ; the proportion under the last 
census was, Yirginia eleven to New York thirty. South Carolina, which 
originally had one-thirteenth of the popular representation in Congress, 
would only return, under the census of 1860, four members in a house of 
two hundred and thirty-three. The representative power in the North 
had become enormously in excess, and whenever it chose to act unani- 
mously, was capable of any amount of oppression upon the rival section. 

Under this sectional domination grew up a system of protections and 
bounties to the North without parallel in the history of class legislation 
and of unequal laws in a common country, Virginia had accepted the 
Constitution in the hoj)e that the General Government, having " power to 
regulate commerce," would lift the restrictions from her trade. This 
consideration was held out as a bribe for votes in the Coiwention. She 
was bitterly disappointed. In the Virginia Convention of 1822, Mr. "Wat- 
kins Leigh declared : " Every commercial operation of the Federal 
Government, since I attained manhood, has been detrimental to the 
Southern Atlantic slaveholding, planting States," 

The South had no protection for her agriculture. At the time of the 
adoption of the Constitution, the manufacturing interest was a very 
unimportant one in the country. But manufactures soon became a 
prominent and special branch of industry in the North ; and a course of 
sectional legislation was commenced to exact from the South a large 
portion of the proceeds of her industiy, and bestow it upon the North in 
the shape of bounties to manufacturers and appropriations hi a thousand 
forms. " Protection " was the cry which came up from eveiy jiart of the 
North, Massachusetts, although unwilling to be taxed on (he importa- 
tion of molasses, wanted protection for tlie rum she made from it, and 
contHlded that it should be fenced in by high duties from a competition 
with the rum of Jamaica, Pennsylvania souglit protection foi' her man- 
ufactures of steel and her paper mills, Connecticut had manufactures 
of woollens and manufactures of cordage, which she declared would perish 
without protection. New l^ork demanded that every article should be 
protected that her people were able to produce. And to su(th clamours 
and demands the South had for a long time to submit, so helpless indeed 
that she was scarcely treated as a i)arty to common measures of legislation. 
The foundation of i\\Q protective tariff of 1828 — " the bill of abominations," 
as it was styled by Mr. Calhoun — was laid in a Convention of Northern 
men at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania ; and from this Convention were 
excluded all sections of the country intended to be made tributary under 
the act of Congress. 

Of the tariff of 1828 "Senator Benton remarked : " The South believed 



60 THE LOST CAUSE. 

itself impoverished to enrich the ]!^orth by this system ; and certainly an 
unexpected re9»ilt had been seen in these two sections. In the colonial 
state the Southern were the richer part of the colonies, and they expected 
to do well in a state of independence. But in the first lialf century aftei 
independence this expectation was reversed. The wealth of the North 
was enormously aggrandized ; that of the South had declined. Northern 
towns had become g^eat cities, Southern cities had decayed or become 
stationary ; and Charleston, the principal port of the South, was less 
considerable than before the Revolution. The North became a money- 
lender to the South, and Southern citizens made pilgrimages to Northeruk 
cities to raise money upon their patrimonial estates. The Southern 
States attributed this result to the action of the Federal Government^its 
double action of levying revenue upon the industry of one section of 
the Union and expending it in another — and especially to its protective 
tariffs." 

Again, contrasting the condition of the South then with what it had 
been at the Revolutionary period, the same Senator remarked : " It is a 
tradition of the colonies that the South had been the seat of wealth and 
happiness, of power and opulence ; that a rich population covered the 
land, dispensing a baronial hospitality, and diifusing the felicity which 
themselves enjoyed ; that all was life, and joy, and affluence then. And 
this tradition was not without similitude to the reality, as tliis writer can 
testify ; for he was old enough to have seen (after the Revolution) tlie still 
surviving state of Southern colonial manners, when no traveller was 
allowed to go to a tavern, but was handed over from family to family 
through entire States ; when holidays were days of festivity and expecta- 
tion long prepared for, and celebrated by master and slave with music 
and feasting, and great concourse of friends and relations ; when gold 
was kept in chests, after the downfall of Continental paper, and weighed 
in scales, and lent to neighbours for short terms without note, in^-est, 
witness, or security ; and when petty litigation was at so low an ebl^Iiat 
it required a fine of forty pounds of tobacco to make a man serve as 
constable. The reverse of all this was now seen and felt — not to the 
whole extent which fancy or policy painted, but to extent enough to 
constitute a reverse, and to make a contrast, and to excite the regrets 
which the memory of past joys never fixils to awaken." 

The early history of the tariff makes a plain exhibition of the stark 
outrage perpetrated by it upon the Southern States. The measure of 1816 
had originated in the necessities of a public revenue — for the war com- 
menced against England four years before had imposed a debt upon the 
United States of one hundred and thirty millions of dollars. It was 
proposed to introduce into this tariff" the incidental feature of " protec- 
tion ; " and it was argued that certain home manufactures liad sprung up 



HISTORY OF THE AMKBICAN TAEIFFS. 61 

during the exigencies of the war, which were useful and deserving, and 
that they were likely to lapse under the sudden return of peace and to 
sink under foreign competition. A demand so moderate and ingenious 
the South was not disposed to resist. Indeed, it was recommended by 
Jolm C. Calhoun himself, who voted for the bill of 1816. Bat the danger 
was in the precedent. The principle of protection once admitted main- 
tained its hold and enlarged its demands ; it was successively cariied 
farther in the tariffs of 1820, '24, and '28. And in 1831, when it was 
shown by figures in Congress that the financial exigencies that had first 
called the tariflt* into existence had completely passed away, and that the 
government was, in fact, collecting about twice as much revenue as its 
usual expenditures required, the North still held to its demands for pro- 
tection, and strenuously resisted any repeal or reduction of the existing- 
tariff. 

The demand of the South at this time, so ably enforced by Calhoun, 
for the repeal of the tariff', was recommended by the most obvious justice 
and the plainest prudence. It was shown that the public debt had been 
so far diminished as to render it certain that, at the existing rate of 
revenue, in three years the last dollar would be paid, and after three years 
there would be an annual surplus in the treasury of twelve or thirteen 
millions. But the North was insensible to these arguments, and brazen 
in its demands. The result of this celebrated controversy, which shook 
the Union to its foundations, was a compromise or a modification of the 
tariff', in which however enough was saved of the protective principle to 
satisfy for a time the rapacity of the North, and that through the dema- 
gogical exertions of Henry Clay of Kentucky, who courted Northern 
populapty, and enjoyed in Northern cities indecent feasts and triumphs 
for his infidelity to his section. 

But the tariff of 1833 was a deceitful compromise, and its terms were 
nev^intended by the North to be a final settlement of the question. 
In 1842 the settlement was repudiated, and the duties on manufactures 
again advanced. From that time until the period of Disunion the fiscal 
system of the United States was persistently protective ; the South con- 
tinued to decline ; she had no large manufactures, no great cities, no ship- 
ping interests ; and although the agricultural productions of the South 
were the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States, yet Southern 
cities did not carry it on. 

Nor was the tariff the only measure of Northern aggrandizement in 
the Union. Besides manufactures, the North had another great interest 
in navigation, A system of high differential duties gave protection to it ; 
Mid this, of course, bore with peculiar hardship on the Southern States, 
whose commodities were thus burdened by a new weight put upon them 
by the hand of the General Government. In tarifi's, in pensions, in fishing 



62 THE LOST CAUSE. 

bounties, in tonnage duties, in every measure that the ingenuity of avarice 
could devise, the North exacted from the South a tribute, which it could 
only pay at the expense and in the character of an inferiour in the Union. 

But in opposition to this view of the helplessness of the South and her 
inability to resist the exactions of the North, it may be said that the South 
had an important political alliance in the North, that she was aided there 
by the Democratic jjarty, and that she thus held the reins of government 
during the greater portion of the time the tariffs alleged to be so injurious 
to her interests existed. And here we touch a remarkable fact in Ameri- 
can politics. It is true that a large portion of the Democratic party 
resided in the North, and that many of the active politicians there 
pretended to give in their adhesion to the States Rights school of politics. 
But this Democratic alliance with the South was one only for party pur- 
poses. It was extravagant of professions, but it carefully avoided trials 
of its fidelity ; it was selfish, cunning, and educated in perfidy. It was a 
deceitful combination for party purposes, and never withstood the test of 
a practical question. The Northern Democrat was always ready to con- 
tend against the Whig, but never against his own pocket, and the peculiar 
interests of his section. The moment economical questions arose in Con- 
gress, the Northern Democrat was on the side of Northern interests, and 
the Southern ranks, very imposing on party questions, broke into a scene 
of mutiny and desertion. It was indeed the Aveak confidence which the 
South reposed in the Democratic party of the North that more than once 
betrayed it on the very brink of the greatest issues in the country, and did 
more perhaps to put it at disadvantage in the Union than the party of 
open opposition. 

It was through such a train of legislation as we have briefly described 
that the South rapidly declined in the Union. By the force of a numeri- 
cal majority — a thing opposed to the American system, properly under- 
stood — a Union, intended to be one of mutual benefits, was nM.de a 
conduit of wealth and power to the North, while it drained the South of 
nearly every element of material prosperity. 

It is true that the numerical majority of the North the South held 
long in check by superior and consummate political skill. Party compli- 
cations were thrown around the Sectional Animosity. But it was easy to 
ste that some time or other that animosity would break the web of party ; 
and that whenever on sectional questions the North chose to act in a mass, 
its power would be irresistible, and that no resource would be left for the 
South than to remain helpless and at mercy in the Union or to essay a 
new political destiny. We shall see that in the year 1860 the North did 
choose to act in a mass, and that the South was thus and then irresistiblj 
impelled to the experiment of Disunion. 



CHAPTER lY. 



THE SECTIONAL EQUILLBEIUM. — HOW DISTURBED IN 1820. — CONTEST ON THE ADMISSION 
OF TEXAS. — COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850. — DECLARATION OF A " FINALIT-Y." — 

PRESIDENT PIEEOE's ADMINISTRATION. — THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL. REPEAL OF " THE 

MISSOURI COMPEOMISE." — ORIGIN OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN THE NORTH. — COM- 
POSITION AND CHARACTER OF THIS PARTY. — AMAZING PROGRESS OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY 
SENTIMENT IN THE NORTH. — NEW INTERPRETATION OF THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL BY 
SENATOR DOUGLAS. — INTENDED TO COURT THE ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT. — DOCTRINE 
OF " NON-INTERVENTION " IN THE TEEEITOEIES. — THE " DRED SCOT^*«ECISION." — THE 
KANSAS CONTROVERSY. — THE LECOMPTON CONVENTION.— THE TOPE:^a&|toNSTITUTION. 

— PRESIDENT Buchanan's position and arguments. — opposition ^"t&senatob 

DOUGLAS. — HIS INSINOEEITY. — THE NORTHERN DEMOCRATIC PARTY DEMOEii'^ED ON 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. — DOUGLAS' DOCTRINE OF " POPULAR SOVEEEIGNTY."— ^'X SHOET 
CUT TO ALL THE ENDS OF BLACK EEPUBLICANISM." — DOUGLAS AS A DEMAdHl^E. — THE 
TRUE ISSUES IN THE KANSAS CONTROVERSY. IMPORTANT PASSAGES IN THE CONGRES- 
SIONAL DEBATE. — SETTLEMENT OF THE KANSAS QUESTION. — DOUGLAs' FOUNDATION OF 
A NEW PARTY. — HIS DEMAGOGICAL APPEALS. — THE TRUE SITUATION. — LOSS OF THE 
SECTIONAL EQUILIBRIUM. — SERIOUS TEMPER OF THE SOUTH. — THE JOHN BROWN 
EAID. — IDENTITY OF JOHN BROWN's "PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION AND ORDINANCES" 
WITH THE SUBSEQUENT POLICY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.— CURIOUS FORESHADOW 
OF SOUTHERN SUBJUGATION. — THE DESCENT ON HARPEr's FERRY. — CAPTURE AND EXE- 
CUTION OF BROWN. — HIS DECLARATION. — NORTHERN SYMPATHY WITH HIM. — ALARMING 
TENDENCY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TO THE ULTRA ABOLITION SCHOOL. — " THE 
HELPER BOOK," — SENTIMENTS OF SIXTY-EIGHT NORTHERN CONGRESSMEN. — THE CONCEIT 
AND INSOLENCE OF THE NORTH. — AFFECTATION OF REPUBLICANS THAT THE UNION 
WAS A CONCESSION TO THE SOUTH. — HYPOCRISY OF THIS PARTY. — INDICATIONS OF THE 
COMING CATASTROPHE OF DISUNION. — THE PRESIDENTIAL CANVASS OF 1860. — DECLARA- 
TIONS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. — THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION. — SECESSION OF THE 
SOUTHERN DELEGATES. — THE DIFFERENT PRESIDENTIAL TICKETS. — ELECTION OF ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN. — ANALYSIS OF THE VOTE. — HOW HIS ELECTION WAS A " SECTIONAL" TRIUMPH. 
— OMINOUS IMPORTANCE OF IT IN THAT VIEW. — ARGUMENTS FOE SUSTAINING LINCOLN'S 
ELECTION. — SEWAED's ARGUMENT IN THE SENATE. — LINCOLN'S ELECTION A GEOGRAPHI- 
cal one. — how these was no longer protection for the south in the union. 
— the anti-slaveey power compact and invincible. — another apology for 
Lincoln's election. — fallacy of eegaedino it as a teansfee of the adminis- 
tbation in equal oiectjmstanoes feom the south to the north. — how the south 





64 THE LOST CAUSE. 

HAD rSED ITS LEASE OF POLITICAL POWEE. — SENATOR HAMMONd's TRIBUTE. POWER IN 

THE HANDS OF THE NORTH EQUIVALENT TO SECTIONAL DESPOTISM. THE NORTH " ACT- 
ING IN MASS." THE LOGICAL NECESSITY OF DISUNION. 

The wisest statesmen of America were convinced that tlie trne and 
intelligent means of continuing the Union was to preserve the sectional 
equilihrinm, and to keep a balance of power between North anS South. 
That equilibrium had been violently disturbed, in 1820, at the time of the 
Missouri Compromise, The relative representations of the North and 
South in the United States Senate were then so evenly balanced that it 
came to be decisive of a continuance of political power in the South 
whether Missouri should be an addition to her ranks or to those of her 
adversary. The contest ended, immediately, in favour of the South ; but 
not without involving a measure of proscription against slavery. 

Another struggle for political power between the two sections occurred 
on the admission of Texas. The South gained another State. But tlae 
acquisition of Texas brought on the war with Mexico ; and an enormous 
addition to Northern territory became rapidly peopled with a population 
allured from every quarter of the globe. 

On the admission of California into the Union, the South was per- 
suaded to let her come in with an anti-slavery Constitution for the 
wretched compensation of a reenactment of the fugitive slave law, and 
some other paltry measures. The cry was raised that the Union was in 
danger. The appeals urged under this cry had the usual effect of recon- 
ciling the South to the sacrifice required of her, and embarrassed anything 
like resistance on the part of her representatives in Congress to the com- 
promise measures of 1850. South Carolina threatened secession ; but 
the other Southern States were not prepared to respond to the bold and 
adventurous initiative of Southern independence. But it should be stated 
that the other States of the South, in agreeing to what was called, in severe 
irony, the Compromise of 1850, declared that it was the last concession 
they would make to the North ; that they took it as a " finality," and 
that the slavery question was thereafter to be excluded from the pale of 
Federal discussion. 

In 1852 Franklin Pierce was elected President of the United States. 
lie was a favourite of the State Bights Democracy of the South ; and it 
was hoped that under his administration the compromise measures of 1850 
would indeed be realized as a " finality," and the country be put upon 
a cai-eer of constitutional and peaceful rule. But a new and violent agita- 
tion was to spring up in the first session of the first Congress under hia 
administration. 

The Territory of Nebraska had applied for admission into the Union. 
Mr. Stephen A. Douglas, Senator from Illinois, reported from the Cora- 



I 



THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL. 65 

mittee on Territories a bill which made two Territories — Nebraska aud 
Kansas — instead of one, and which declared that the Missouri Compromise 
Act was superseded by the compromise measures of 1850, and had thus 
become inoperative. It held that the Missouri Compromise act, " being 
inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention hy Congress with 
slavery in the States and Territories as recognized by the legislation of 
1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared 
inoperative and void ; it being the true intent and meaning of this act 
not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it there- 
from, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." The bill passed both houses of Congress in 1854. 

The Kansas-Nebraska bill, involving as it did the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, was taken by the South as a sort of triumph. The 
latter measure, being viewed as an act of proscription against the South, 
was justly offensive to her ; although indeed the repeal was scarcely more 
than a matter of principle or sentiment, as the sagacious statesmen of the 
South were well aware that the States in the Northwest were likely, from 
the force of circumstances, to be settled by Northern people, and to be 
thus dedicated to their institutions.^" But it was then supposed that the 
phraseology of the Kansas-Nebraska bill was not liable to misconstruc- 
tion ; and that when it was declared that the people of the Territories 
were to deteraiine the question of slavery, it meant, of course, that they 
were to do so in the act of forming a State Constitution and deciding 
upon other institutions of the State as well as that of slavery. 

In the North, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was the occasion 
of a furious excitement. Mr. Douglas was hung in effigy in some of thei*r 
towns, execrated by Northern mobs, and evei; threatened with violence to 
his person. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North was rapidly devel- 
oped in the excitement ; a new party was organized with reference to the 
question of slavery in' the Territories ; and thus originated the famous 
Republican party — popularly called the Black Republican party — which 
was indeed identical with the Abolition party in its sentiment of hostility 
to slavery, and differed from it only as to the degree of indirection by 
whicli its purpose might best be accomplished. This party comprised the 
great mass of the intellect and wealth of the North. It was also the 



* As a general rule the South could not compete with the North in the race of emigration to 
new countries. Nor was it her interest, being a sparsely settled and agricultural country, to do so. 
A recent English commentator on the American Union (Mr. Spence) well observes : ' It is an 
unfortunate result of the complex politics of the Uwon that the political instinct of the South is 
driven to oppose its material interest. It mvtst expand while the North expands, or a icciuub. 
It cannot seek expansion from choice or interest, but is driven to it by the impulse of politl.-al self 
preservation." 
V 5 



66 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Protectionist party. Its leaning was in favour of strong government, and 
whatever there might be of aristocracy in the North belonged to it. 

The new party sprung at once into an amazing power. In the Presi- 
dential canvass of 1852, which had resulted in the election of Mr. Pierce, 
John P. Hale, who ran upon what was called the " straight-out " Abolition 
ticket, did not receive the vote of a single State, and but 175,296 of the 
popular vote of the Union. But upon the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise, Abolitionism, in the guise of " Republicanism," sv;ept almost 
cverytliing before it in the North and Northwest in the elections of 1854 
and 1855 ; and in the Thirty-first Congress, Nathaniel Banks, an objec- 
tionable Abolitionist of the Massachusetts school, was elected to the 
speakership of the House. 

In the mean time, the language of the Kansas-Nebraska bill was the 
subject of no dispute. No one supposed that from this language there 
was to originate an afterthought on the part of Mr. Douglas, and that, by 
an ingenious torture of words, this measure was to be converted into one 
to conciliate the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, and to betray the 
interests of the South. This afterthought was doubtless the consequence 
of the rapid growth of the Black Eepublican party, and the convictioi) 
that the Democratic party in the North could only recover its power by 
some marked concession to the sectional sentiment now rapidly developing 
on the subject of slavery. 

It should be noticed here that the doctrine of " non-intervention," 
which prohibited Congress from interfering with the question of slavery 
in the Territories, had been affirmed by a judicial decision in the Supreme 
Court of the United States. In the famous " Dred Scott case," a negro 
demanded his freedom on the ground of legal residence beyond the lati- 
tude of 36° 30' N. — the line of the Missouri Compromise. The Supreme 
Court pronounced that Congress had no power to make that law ; that it 
was therefore null and void ; and declared " that the Constitution recog- 
nizes the right of property in a slave, and makes no distinction between 
that description of property and other property owned by a citizen ; " and 
further, that every citizen had the clear right to go into any Territory, 
and take with him that which the Constitution recognized as his property. 

So far the rights of the South in the Territories were thought to be 
plain ; the design of the Black Republican party to exclude slavery there- 
from by the Federal authority had been pronounced unconstitutional by 
the highest judicial authority in the country ; and the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill was thought to be a plain letter, which taught that slavery was the 
subject of exclusive legislation by States, or by Territories in the act of 
assuming the character of States. But the South only stood on the 
threshold of a new controversy — another exhibition of the ingenuity of the 
anti-slavery sentiment to assert itself in new methods and on new issues. 



THE KANSAS CONTROVERSY. 67 



THE KANSAS CONTROVERSY. 

What is known as the Kansas Controversj was a marked era in the 
p(jlitical history of the Union. It ilhistrated most powerfully the fact that 
the slavery question really involved but little of moral sentiment, and 
indicated a contest for political power between two rival sections. 

When Mr. Buchanan came into the Presidential office, in 1857, he at 
once perceived that the great point of his administration wouM be to 
effect the admission of Kansas into the Union, and thus terminate a 
dispure which was agitating and distracting the countiy. In September, 
1857, the people of the Territory had called a Convention at Lecompton 
to form a Constitution. The entire Constitution was not submitted to the 
popular vote ; but the Convention took care to submit to the vote of the 
j^eople, for ratification or rejection, the clause respecting slavery. The 
official vote resulted : For the Constitution, with slavery, 6,226 ; for the 
Constitution, without slavery, 509. Under this Constitution, Mr. Buchanan 
recommended the admission of Kansas into the Union ; and indeed he had 
reason to hope for it in view of the principles which had governed in his 
election. 

The argument on the other side was that the entire Constitution had 
not been submitted to the people, and that the principle of " popular 
sovereignty " had been invaded by the Convention, in not representing 
all the voters of the Territory, and in not submitting the entire result of 
their labours to a vote of the people. The Anti-Slavery or Free State 
party had also their Constitution to advocate, an instrument framed in 
1855, at Topeka, which had been submitted to the people, and ratified by 
a large majority of those who voted. But the facts were that scarcely 
any but Abolitionists went to the polls ; and it was notorious that the 
Topeka Constitution was the fruit of a bastard population that had been 
thrown into the Territory by the " Emigrant Aid Societies " of New 
England. 

In his first message to Congress, Mr. Buchanan surveyed the whole 
ground of the controversy. He explained that when he instructed 
Gov. Walker of Kansas, in general terms, in favour of submitting the 
Constitution to the people, he had no other object in view beyond the 
all-absorbing topic of slavery ; he considered that under the organic act 
— known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill — the Convention was bound to 
submit the all-important question of slavery to the peo2:»le ; he added, that 
it was never his opinion, however, that, independently of this act, the 
Convention would be bound to submit any portion of the Constitution to 
a popular vote, in order to give it validity ; and he argued tho fallacy and 



68 THE LOST CAUSE. 

unreasonableness of sucli an opinion, by insisting that it was in opposition to 
the principle which pervaded our institutions, and which was every day 
carried into practice, to the effect that the people had the right to delegate 
to representatives, chosen by themselves, sovereign power to frame Con- 
stitutions, enact laws, and perform many other important acts, without the 
necessity of testing the validity of their work by popular approbation. 

These views appeared reasonable enough. But Mr. Buchanan found 
that they were opposed by many members of Congress who had actively 
supported him in his canvass, and chief and leader among them the dis- 
tinguished author of the Kansas-lSTebraska bill, Mr, Douglas. This man 
had assembled an opposition under the captivating term of " popular 
sovereignty ; " but these words had a certain narrow and technical party 
meaning, and covered a remarkable and ingenious design upon the power 
and interests of the South. 

It had long been evident to intelligent observers that the !N^orthern 
Democratic party, of which Mr. Douglas some time ago had been the 
acknowledged leader, was becoming demoralized on the slavery question. 
This party had formerly acted with the South for political power. In the 
depression of that power and the rapid growth of the anti-slavery party in 
the ISTorth, it had no hesitation in courting and conciliating the ruling 
element. This disposition was accommodated by the controversy which 
had taken place between Mr. Douglas and the administration of 
Mr. Buchanan. The anti-slavery sentiment in the Korth was conciliated 
by the partisans of the former in adopting a new principle for the govern- 
ment of the Territories, which was to allow the people to determine the 
question of slavery in their Territorial capacity ^ without awaiting their 
organization as a State, and thus to risk the decision of the rights of the 
South on the verdict of a few settlers on the public domain. This doc- 
trine was violently entitled by Mr. Douglas " popular sovereignty ; " but 
it was more justly described by Gov. "Wise of Yirginia, as " a short cut to 
all the ends of Black Eepublicanism." 

It is thus seen that Mr. Douglas had tortured the language of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill into the sense that the unorganized population of a 
Territory might decide the question of slavery as against the State 
interests of the South ; thus indicating to the North that this measure 
might quite as easily and readily exclude slavery as the intervention of 
Congress, the right of which the Black Kepublican party claimed. 

Mr. Douglas was an able and eloquent demagogue. He imposed his 
doctrine upon the minds of not a few of the Southern people by the artful- 
ness of its appeals to the name of a principle, wliich had none of the 
substance of justice or equality. He raised in Congress what was called 
the Anti-Lecompton party, pledged to the exclusion of Kansas under the 
Lecompton Constitution, and insisting on the right of Territorial legisla- 



SErrLEMENT OF THE KANSAS QUESTION. 69 

tion on the subject of slavery. For six months the Kansas question occu- 
pied Congress, and held the country in anxiety and suspense. It was a 
contest for political power between North and South, The mere indus- 
trial interests or morals of slavery had nothing to do with it. 

The sum of the controversy was that the South struggled for the 
principle of equality in the Territories, without reference to the selfish 
interests of slavery, and even with the admission of the hopelessness of 
those interests in Kansas ; while the North contended for the narrow 
Belfish, practical consequence of maldng Kansas a part of her Free-soil 
possessions. This was evident in the debates in Congress. At one stage 
of the discussion, Mr. English, of Indiana, asked the question : " Is there 
a Southern man here who will vote against the admission of Kansas as 
a Free State, if it be the undoubted will of the people of that Territory 
that it shall be a Free State — if she brings here a Constitution to that 
effect ? " — and there was a general response " Not one " from the Southern 
side of the House. At another period of the debate, Mr. Barksdale of 
Mississippi put the question to Black Republican members whether they 
Avould vote for the admission of Kansas into the Union with a Consti- 
tution tolerating slavery " if a hundred thousand people there wished it." 
Mr. Giddings of Ohio replied that he " would never vote to compel his 
State to associate with another Slave State." Mr. Stanton, his colleague, 
added : " I will say that the Republican members of this House, so far a 
I know, will never vote for the adinission of any Slave State north of 
36° 30'." 

The result of the dispute was the report of a bill for the admission of 
Kansas, which became a law in June, 1858, and substantially secured 
nearly all tliat the North had claimed in the matter. The people were 
authorized to form a new Constitution. Kansas did not come into the 
Union until nearly three years afterwards, just as it was going to pieces ; 
and then it came in with an anti-slavery Constitution, and President 
Buchanan, consistently, signed the bill of admission. 

But the trouble did not end with the solution of the Kansas difficulty. 
The true character of that event, and the debates which had attended it in 
Congress, convinced the South that it could hardly expect, under any cir- 
cumstances, the addition of another Slave State to the Union. Tlie per- 
nicious doctrines of Mr. Douglas were used to erect a party which, while 
it really pandered to the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, imposed 
upon the South by cheap expressions of conservatism, and glozed state 
mcnts of its designs. Mr. Douglas proclaimed his views to be in favour of 
non-intervention by Congress on the sul>ject of slavery ; he avowed his 
continued and unalterable opposition to Black-Repul)licanism ; his princi- 
ples were professed to be " held subject to the decisions of the Supreme 
Court" — the distinction between judicial questions and political questions 



70 THE LOST CAUSE. 

being purposely clouded ; and Lis friends, with an ingenious sopliistrv 
that had imposed upon the South for thirty years with success, insisted 
that the support of Stephen A. Douglas was a support of the party in the 
North which had stood by the South amid persecution and defamation. 

But it was evident to reflecting minds tliat, either by the policy of the 
Black Bepublican party, or the shorter device of the Douglas Democracy 
for the government of the Territories, the sectional equilibrium of the 
Union was lost. A disposition was shown to calculate the real value of a 
Union which, by its mere name and the paraphrases of demagogues, had 
long governed the affections of the people, but in which, it was now seen, 
the South must constantly descend in political power ; in which she paid a 
tribute to the North in unequal taxations and in the courses of trade, esti- 
mated by a Northern writer at two hundred millions of dollars a year ; 
and in which she was constantly enduring insult, occupied the position of 
an inferiour, and was designated as the spotted and degraded part of 
America. 



THE JOHN EKOWN KAID. 

Other events were to repeat and enlarge the shock given to the Union 
by the Kansas controversy. In October, 1859, occurred the famous John 
Brown raid into Virginia, in which an old man, who had obtained in Kan- 
sas the notoriety of a horse-thief and an assassin, invaded the State of Vir- 
ginia at Harper's Ferry with a band of outlaws, declared his purpose 
to free the slaves, and commenced with a work of blood the first acts of 
sectional rebellion against the authority of the United States. It seems 
that this man, who had the singular combination of narrow sagacity, or 
cunning with visionary recklessness that is often observed in fanatics, had, 
in 1858, summoned a convention in West Canada, in which he proposed 
to substitute a plan of action entitled " Provisional Constitution and Ordi- 
nances " for all other governments then in existence in the United 
States. 

This fanatical instrument has a very curious interest fi'om its general 
similitude to that " plan of action " which was afterwards adopted by the 
Government at Washington in its great war upon the South, and its sub- 
sequent programme of subjugation. 

The main point of the preamble of John Brown's Constitution was to 
announce the fact that the new government especially contemplated the 
accession of " the proscribed, oppressed, and enslaved " people of the 
United States. And this, and the qualification for membership in a fol- 
lowing article, intimated that not sex, colour, age, political or social condi 
tion would be at all considered against any one. 



THE JOHN BKOWN KAID. 71 

The powers of the central Congress were defined in this instrument after 
the strictest school of Consolidation ; and the existence of the States waa 
nowhere practically acknowledged. 

In article 17 we find tlic following provision : 

" It shall be the duty of the President and Secretary of State to find out, as soon as 
possible, the real friends, as well as enemies of this organization in every part of the 
country ; to secure among them inn-keepers, private postmasters, private mail contrac- 
tors, messengers and agents, through whom may be obtained correct and regular infor- 
mation constantly." 

Tlie remaining articles of the Constitution develop a plan to build up 
on the ruins of existing laws and institutions a despotism, in which the 
" enemies of the government " are to be deprived of their capacity to do 
further evil by the loss of their liberty and property, while the loyal citizens 
are to form a sort of aristocratic fraternity, whose patriotic duty it will be 
to punish disloyalty at all hours and uj)on all occasions " promptly and 
etfectually," and " without the formality of a complaint." The confisca- 
tion of the property of all slaveholders and " other disloyal persons " is 
directed ; and here, too, we find prescribed oaths of neutrality and alle- 
giance, registering, &c. 

This curious foreshadow of the policy of the North, which was to sup- 
plant the Constitution of the United States, originated in a convention of 
thirty-five fanatics, of whom ten where white men and the remaining 
twenty-five negroes of various shades of colour. John Brown, having 
thus prefaced his expedition into Virginia, collected a small company of 
insurgents, black and white, on a farm he had rented near Harper's Ferry, 
hoping that, as he invaded Virginia, the blacks would flock to his stand- 
ard, and be armed there with the pikes and rifles he had provided for his 
recruits. 

At half past ten o'clock, Sunday night, ITth October, 1859, the Poto- 
mac was crossed, and, proceeding with military method, the party seized 
first the watchman guarding the railroad bridge at Harper's Ferry, and, 
posting pickets at certain points, occupied the arsenal and armory building. 
A white confederate, named Cook, went out in command of a party for 
the purpose of getting black recruits from the adjoining estates of slave- 
holders. He arrested Col. Lewis Washington in his house, and brought in 
Bome other hostages in tlie persons of prominent citizens. In the mean- 
while, Brown's pickets from time to time arrested and brought into his 
presence all who, from motives of curiosity or otherwise, had ventured 
within his military lines. These were retained as prisoners in one of the 
armory buildings. The pickets having captured one of the watchmen on 
the bridge, when the one who was to relieve him made his apyjearance, 
tliey challenged him. He, alarmed, at once retreated without obeying 



73 THE LOST CA.UBE. 

tlieir command to stand. Finding words of no avail, the outlaws fired 
upon the fugitive, and brought him to the ground. Upon examining their 
victim, they discovered that he was a mulatto and mortally wounded. 

About three o'clock in the morning, the Baltimore train arrived. This 
was halted for two or three hours, and finally, after much expostulation, 
allowed to pass. The news soon reached Washington ; and Col. Robert 
E. Lee, then lieutenant-colonel of the Second Cavalry, was despatched to 
command the regular troops concentrating at Harper's Ferry. Accom- 
panied by his aid, Lieut. J. E. B. Stuart — afterward tlie world-renowned 
cavalry chief of Lee's Army of iNorthern Virginia — he set out on a special 
train, and sent a telegraphic despatch to the U. S. Marines, in advance of 
him, directing them what to do. Other troops — the militia from Yirginia 
and Maryland — had promptly reached the scene, and when Col. Lee 
arrived during the night, were awaiting his orders to act. He imme- 
diately placed his command within the armory grounds, so as to com- 
pletely surround the fire-engine house where the insurgents had taken 
refuge, in it, Brown and his party had confined Col. Washington, 
Mr. Dangerfield, and some other citizens whom they had surprised and 
captured the night before ; and therefore to use the cannon upon it now 
would be to endanger the lives of friends as well as foes. 

Accordingly, at daylight. Col. Lee took measures to attempt the 
capture of the insurgents, if possible, without bloodshed. At seven in the 
morning he sent his aid, Lieut. Stuart, to summon them quietly to sur- 
render, promising only protection from violence and a trial according to 
law. Brown refused all terms but those which he had more than once 
already asked for, namely : " That he should be permitted to pass out 
unmolested with his men and arms and prisoners, that they should proceed 
unpursued to the second toll-gate, when they would free their prisoners, 
and take the chances of escape." These concessions were, of course, 
refused. 

At last, perceiving all his humane efibrts to be of no avail. Col. Lee 
gave orders for an attack. A strong party of marines advanced by two 
lines quickly on each side of the door. "When near enough, two powerful 
men sprung between the lines, and, with heavy sledge-hammers, attempted 
to batter down the doors, but failed. They then took hold of a ladder 
some forty feet long, and, advancing on a run, brought it with tremendous 
efi:ect upon the door. At the second blow it gave way, and immediately 
the marines rushed to the breach as a volley from within came right upon 
them. One man, in the front, fell mortally wounded, and shai"p and rapid 
was the firing from within from the insurgents, now driven to desperation. 
The next moment the gap was widened, and the marines poured in. 
As Lieut. Stuart entered the door, a voice cried out, " I surrender," 
Brown said, " One man surrenders, give him quarter ! " and at the same 



CAPTUBE AND EXECUTION OF I^ROWN. 73 

time fired liis piece. The next moment Stuart's sword had entered bis 
skul], and the desperate outhiw was stretched bleeding. The other insur- 
gents were quickly secured ; and the liberated citizens, who had held up 
their hands to designate themselves to the marines, and thus escape their 
fire, were hailed with shouts of congratulation as they passed out of the 
building. 

"Wliile suffering from a wound supposed to be mortal, Brown made the 
follo^\ing admissions to Governor Wise of Yirginia : "I never had more 
than twenty-two men about the place at one time ; but had it bo 
arranged, that I could arm, at any time, fifteen hundred men with the 
following arms : two thousand Sliarp's rifles, two hundred Maj-^iard's 
revolvers, one thousand spears. I would have armed the whites with the 
rifles and revolvers, and the blacks with the spears ; they not being 
sufiicieutly familiar with other arms. I had plenty of ammunition and 
provisions, and had a good right to expect the aid of from two to five 
thousand men, at any time I wanted them. Help was promised me from 
Maryland, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Canada. 
The blow was struck a little too soon. The passing of the train on Sunday 
night did the work for us ; that killed us. I only regret that I have lailed 
in my designs ; but I have no apology to make or concession to ask now. 
Had we succeeded, when our arms and funds were exhausted by an 
increasing army, contributions would have been levied on the slaveliolders, 
and 'their property appropriated to defray expenses and carry on the war 
of freedom." 

On the 2d of December, 1859, having been tried at Charleston, Yir- 
ginia, and condenmed. Brown was coiulucted to the gallows, and there, in 
sight of the beautiful country, a portion of which he had ho])ed one day 
to possess, he sufl'ered the extreme penalty of the law. He died with the 
unnatural firmness of a fanatic — but as many in the North interpreted it, 
with the exalted courage of a martyr. 

It had been said in some Northern newspapers that the John Brown 
raid and its expiation would have a good effect in opening the eyes of the 
people to the crime and madness of Abolition doctrines. But subsequent 
events were quite to the contrary. The Northern elections of the next 
month showed no diminution in the Black Kepublican vote. The mani- 
festations of sympathy for John Brown could not be contained, and took 
place openly in many of the Northern cities and towns. Upon the day 
appointed for his execution, a motion for adjournment, out of respect to 
the sacredncss of the day, was lost in the State Senate of Massachusetts by 
only three votes ; while in many of the towns the bells of the churches 
were tolled, and congregations assembled to consecrate the men)ory of 
their hero. The body was carried to North Elba in New York, and after 
it Avas consigned to the grave, many of the New England cleigy allotted 



74 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Jolin Brown an apotlieosis, and consigned liis example to emulation as one 
not only of public virtue, but of particular service to God. 

But a much graver series of events was to sliow the real sympathy of 
the North with John Brown's " plan of action," and to attest the rapid 
tendency of the Black Bepublican party to the worst schools of Abolition. 
At the meeting of Congress in December, 1859, the Black Eepublicans 
nominated to the speakership of the House Mr. Sherman of Ohio, who had 
made himself especially odious to the South, by publicly recommending, 
in connection with sixty- eight other Bepublican Congressmen, a fanatical 
document popularly known as " Helper's BookP This publication, thus 
endorsed by Black Republicans, and circulated by them in the Northerr. 
elections, openly defended and sought to excite servile insurrections in thf, 
South ; and it was with reason that the entire Southern delegation gavf, 
warning that they would regard the election of Mr. Sherman, or of anj 
man with his record, as an open declaration of war upon the institutiori/i 
of the South ; as much so, some of the members declared, as if the Joli/i 
Brown raid were openly approved by a majority of the House of Kepr^- 
sentatives. 

This book, which even Mr. Seward, the leader of the Black Republiea 
party, had recommended, along with others, urged the North to exterm 
nate slavery, and at once, without the slightest compensation, in language o< 
which the following is a specimen, addressed to the Southerners : " Frown 
sirs ; fret, foam, prepare your weapons, threaten, strike, shoot, stab, brin^ 
on civil war, dissolve the Union ; nay, annihilate the solar system, if yon 
will — do all this, more, less, better, worse — anything ; do what 3^011 will 
sirs — you can neither foil nor intimidate us ; our purpose is as fixed as th< 
eternal pillars of heaven ; we have determined to abolish slavery, and— 
so help us God — abolish it we will ! " 

Some other extracts from this infamous book we may place here to 
indicate its character, and the importance of the act of the Black Bepub- 
lican party in endorsing it as a campaign document : " Slavery is a great 
moral, social, civil, and political evil, to be got rid of at the earliest prac- 
ticable period Three-quarters of a century hence, if the South 

retains slavery, which God forbid ! she will be to the North what Poland 

is to Bnssia, Cuba to Spain, and Ireland to England Our 

own banner is inscribed — No cooperation with slaveholders in politics ; no 
fellowship with them in religion ; no atfiliation with them in society ; no 
recognition of pro-slavery men, except as ruffians, outlaws, and criminals. 
. . . . "We believe it is, as it ought to be, the desire, the determina- 
tion, and the destiny of the Bepublican party to give the death-blow to 

slavery In any event, come what will, transpire what may, 

the institution of slavery must be abolished We are deter- 
mined to abolish slavery at all hazards — in defiance of all the opposition, 



INDOLENCE AND HYPOCRISY OF THE EEPUBLICAN8. 75 

of whatever nature, it is possible for the slaveoerats to bring against us. 
Of this they may take due notice, and govern themselves accordingly. 
. . . . It is our honest conviction that all the pro-slavery slaveholders 
deserve to be at once reduced to a parallel with the basest criminals that 
lie fettered within the cells of our public prisons Compensa- 
tion to slave-owners for negroes ! Preposterous idea — the suggestion is 
^iminal, the demand unjust, wicked, monstrous, damnable. Shall we pat 
the blood-hounds for the sake of doing them a favour ? Shall we feed the 
curs of slavery to make them rich at our expense ? Pay these whelps for 
the privilege of converting them into decent, honest, upright men ? " 

Such was the language, endorsed by sixty-eight Northern Congressmen, 
applied to the South : to that part of the Union indeed which was the 
superiour of the JSTorth in every true and refined element of civilization ; 
which had contributed more than its share to all that had given lustre to 
the military history of America, or the councils of its senate ; which, in 
fact, had produced that list of illustrious American names best known in 
Europe : Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Marshall, 
Clay, Calhoun, Scott, and Maury. 

The fact was that insult to the South had come to be habitual through 
every expression of Northern opinion ; not only in political tirades, but 
through its lessons of popular education, the ministrations of its church, 
its literature, and every form of daily conversation. The rising generation 
of the North were taught to regard the Southerner as one of a lower order 
of civilization ; a culprit to reform, or a sinner to punish. A large party 
in the North afi'ected the insolent impertinence of regarding the Union as 
a concession on the part of the North, and of taunting the South with the 
disgrace which her association in the Union inflicted upon the superiour 
and more virtuous people of the Northern States. There were no bounds 
to this conceit. It was said that the South was an inferiour part of the 
countr}'- ; that she was a " plague-spot ; " that the national fame abroad 
was compromised by the association of the South in the Union ; and that 
a New England traveller in Europe blushed to confess himself an American, 
because neai-ly half of the nation of that name were slaveholders. Not a 
few of the Abolitionists made a pretence of praying that the Union might 
be dissolved, that they uiight be cleared, by the separation of North and 
South, of any implication in the crime of slavery. Even that portion of 
the party calling themselves Kepublicans, affected that the Union stood in 
the way of the North. Mr. Banks, speaker of the House in the Thirty-first 
Congress, was the author of the coarse jeer — " Let the Union slide ; " and 
the New York Tribune had complained that the South " could not be 
kicked out of the Union." — "Wo shall see in the light of subsequent events 
how this Northern afiectation for disunion was a lie, a snare to the South, 
and a hypocrisy unparalleled in all the records of partisan animosity. 



76 THE LOST CAUSE. 

It would have been more or less than liuman nature if the South had 
not been incensed at expressions in which her people were compared with 
" mad-doo-s " — with " small-pox, as nuisances to be abated," or classed with 
gangs of " licensed robbers," " thieves," and " murderers." But it was 
not only the wretched ribaldry of the " Hel^^er Book " that was the canse 
of excitement ; the designs there declared of war upon the South, and 
recommended by an array of Black Republican names, were the occasion 
of the most serious alarm. It is true that Mr, Sherman, the " Helper 
Book " candidate for the speakership of the House, was finally withdrawn, 
and one of his party, not a subscriber to the book, elected. But the fact 
remained that more than three-fourths of the entire Northern delegation 
had adhered to Mr. Sherman for nearly two months in a factious and 
fanatical spirit. Such an exhibition of obstinate rancour could not fail to 
produce a deep impression' on the South ; and the early dissolution of the 
Union had now come to be a subject freely canvassed in Congress and in 
the country. 

"We have thus, in a rapid summary of political events from 1857 to 
I860 — the Kansas controversy, the John Brown raid, and the " Helper 
Book " imbroglio — enabled the reader to discover and combine some of the 
most remarkable indications of the coming catastrophe of Disunion. In 
the historical succession of events we shall see that occurrence rapidly and 
steadily advancing, until at last the sharp and distinct issue of a sectional 
despotism was forced upon the South, and war precipitated upon the 
country. 

The Democratic party of the South had cooperated with the Demo- 
cratic party of the North in the Presidential canvass of 1856, upon the 
principles of the platform adopted by the National Democratic Convention 
assembled in Cincinnati, in June of that year. Tliey expressed a willing- 
ness to continue this cooperation in the election of 1860, upon the prin- 
ciples of the Cincinnati platform ; but demanded, as a condition precedent 
to this, that the question of the construction of this platform should be 
satisfactorily settled. To this end, the Democratic party, in several of the 
Southern States, defined the conditions upon which their delegates should 
hold seats in the National Convention, appointed to meet at Charleston, 
on the 23d of April, 1860. The Democracy in Alabama moved first and 
adopted a series of resolutions, the purport of which was afterwards 
embodied in the instructions administered by some of the other Cotton 
States to their delegations to the National Convention. 

The most important of these resolutions were as follows : 

'•'■ Resoli-ed, That the Constitution of the United States is a compact between sovereign 
and co-equal States, united upon the basis of perfect equality of right? and privileges. 
'■'• Resolved^ further^ That the Territories of the United States are common property, in 



THE CHAKLESTON CONVENTION. 77 

tvliich the States have equal rights, and to which the citizens of any State may right- 
fully emigrate, with their slaves or other property, recognized as such in any of the Statea 
of the Union, or by the Constitution of the United States. 

"■ Hesolved, further, That the Congress of the United States has no power to abolish 
slavery in the Territories, or to prohibit its introduction into any of them. 

^^ Resolved, further, That the Territorial Legislatures, created by the legislation of 
Ccngress, have no power to abolish slavery, or to prohibit the introduction of the same, 
or to impair by unfriendly legislation the security and full enjoyment of the same within 
the Territories ; and such constitutional power certainly does not belong to the people of 
the Territories in any capacity, before, in the exercise of a lawful authority, they form a 
Constitution, preparatory to admission as a State into the Union ; and their action in the 
exercise of such lawful authority certainly cannot operate or take eifect before their 
actual admission as a State into the Union." 

When the Convention met at Charleston two sets of resolutions were 
represented : 

I. 

" Resolved, That the platform at Cincinnati be reaffirmed with the following reso- 
lutions : 

" Resolved, That the Democracy of the United States hold these cardinal principles on 
the subject of slavery in the Territories : First, that Congress has no power to abolish 
slavery in the Territories. Second, that the Territorial Legislature has no power to 
abolish slavery in any Territory, nor to prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor 
any power to exclude slavery therefrom, nor any power to destroy and impair the right 
of property in slaves by any legislation whatever. 



II. 

'''■Resolved, That the platform adopted by the Democratic party at Cincmnati be 
affirmed, with the following explanatory resolutions : 

" First. That the government of a Territory, organized by an act of Congress, is 
provisional and temporary ; and, during its existence, all citizens of the United States 
have an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights, 
either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial 
legislation. 

" Second. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments, to 
protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the Territories and 
' wherever else its constitutional authority extends. 

" Third. That when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, form 
a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and being consummated by 
admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States ; 
and the State thus organized, ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether ita 
Constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery." 

The Convention refused to accept either of the foregoing resolutions, 
and adopted, by a vote of 165 to 138, the following as its platform on the 
slavery question : 



78 THE LOST CAUSE. 

" 1. Resolved, That we, the Democracy of the Union, in Convention asseniblecl, hereby 
declare our affirmance of the resolutions unanimously adopted and declared as a platform 
of principles by the Democratic Convention at Cincinnati, in the year 1856, believing 
that Democratic principles are unchangeable in their nature, when applied to the same 
subject-matters ; and we recommend as the only further resolutions the following: 

" Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic party as to the nature 
and extent of the powers of a Territorial Legislature, and as to the powers and duties of 
Congress under the Constitution of the United States, over the institution of slavery 
within the Territories : 

" 2. Hesolved, That the Democratic party will abide by the decisions of the Supreme 
Court of the United States on the questions of constitutional law." 



This platform being unsatisfactory to the Southern delegates, a body 
of them seceded, and called a new Convention at Baltimore, on the 18th 
of June. The Cotton States all withdrew from the Charleston Convention ; 
but the Border States remained in it, with the hope of efl'ecting some ulti- 
mate settlement of the difficulty. But the reassembling of the Convention 
at Baltimore resulted in a final and embittered separation of the opposing 
delegations. The majority at Charleston exhibited a more uncompromising 
spirit than ever ; and Virginia, and all the Border Slave States, with the 
exception of Missouri, withdrew from the Convention, and united with the 
representatives of the Cotton States, then assembled in Baltimore, in the 
nomination of candidates representing the views of the South. Their nomi- 
nees Avere John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President, and Joseph 
Lane of Oregon for Yice-President. 

The old Convention, or what remained of it, nominated Stephen A. 
Douglas of Illinois for President, and Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama 
for Yice-President. The latter declining, Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia 
was substituted on the ticket. 

A Convention of what was called the " Constitutional Union " party- 
met in Baltimore on the 9th of May, 18G0, and nominated for President 
and Yice-President John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massa- 
chusetts. Their platform consisted of a vague and undefined enumeration 
of their political principles, as, " The Constitution of the Country, the 
Union of the States, and Enforcement of the Laws," 

The l^ational Convention of the Black Republican party was held at 
Chicago in the month of June. It adopted a platform declaring freedom 
to be the " normal condition " of the Territories ; and protesting especial 
attachment to the Union of the States. The Presidential ticket nomi- 
nated by the Convention was, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois for President, 
and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for Yice-President. 

The great majority of the Southern Democracy supported the Breckin- 
ridge ticket ; it was the leading ticket in all the Slave States except 
Missouri ; but in the North only a small and feeble minority of the Demo- 



ABEAHAM LINCOLN ELECTED PRESIDENT. 79 

cratic party gave it their support. In several States, the friends of 
DougLas, of Breckinridge, and of Bell coalesced, to a certain extent, with 
a view to the defeat of Lincoln, but without success, except in ISTew Jersey, 
where they partially succeeded. 

The result of the contest was, that Abraham Lincoln received, the entire 
electoral vote of every free State, except New Jersey, and was, of course, 
elected President of the United States, according to the forms of the Con- 
stitution, 

The entire popular vote for Lincoln was 1,858,200 ; that for Douglas, 
giving him his share of the fusion vote, 1,276,780 ; that for Breckinridge, 
giving him his share of the fusion vote, 812,500 ; and that for Bell, includ- 
ing his proportion of the fusion vote, 735,504. The whole vote against 
Lincoln was thus 2,824,871:, showing a clear aggregate majority against 
him of nearly a million of votes. 

The analysis of the vote which elected Mr. Lincoln showed plainly 
enough that it was a sectional triumph ; and it was in view of that 
ominous fact, rather than in any less important resentment, or with any 
especial reference to the declaration of principles in the Chicago platform, 
that the South proposed to repudiate for lierself the result of the election, 
and to go out of a Union now plainly converted into a means of deliberate 
sectional oppression. 

There has been much loose and plausible protest against this course of 
the South, in which it has been said that it was essentially revolutionary 
and refractory ; that Mr. Lincoln had been elected according to the forma 
of the Constitution by a majority of the electoral college, and that the 
South was bound by honour and in precedent to submit to the result of an 
election legitimately and constitutionally accomplished. This view was 
pronounced by Mr. Seward, in the Senate of the United States. " Was 
the election illegal ? " he asked, " No ; it is unimpeachable. Is the can- 
didate personally offensive ? No ; he is a man of unblemished virtue and 
amiable manners. Is an election of President an unfrequent or extraordi- 
nary transaction ? No ; we never had a Chief Magistrate otherwise 
designated than by such election, and that form of choice is renewed 
every four years. Does any one even propose to change the mode of 
appointing the Chief Magistrate ? No ; election by universal suffi-age, as 
modilied by the Constitution, is the one crowning franchise of the Ameri- 
can people. To save it they would defy the world," 

But it was surprising to find a man of Mr, Seward's pretension to 
statesmanship) using such a loose and superficial argument to sustain an 
election, the sectional significance of which, kept out of view, was really 
the important point, and, of itself, terminated the constitutional existence 
of the Union, 

True, Mr. Lincoln was the choice of the majority of the electoral 



80 THE LOST CAUSE. 

college. But his election was almost purelj geographical. The South had 
sustained a defeat, not at the hands of a party, but at tliose of the Northern 
power. Every Northern State but New Jersey had voted for Mr. Lincoln ; 
every Southern State had voted against him. lie was not known as a 
r,tatesman, whose name might therefore be one of national significance ; he 
M^as known only as a partisan, and the election of such a man in such a 
I haracter was plainly to declare war against the other side. 

In the face of this sectional triumph there was plainly no protection i'or 
the South in the future. There was none in power ; for the superiour 
political strength of the North was now beyond dispute. There was none 
in public opinion ; for that, all the political history of America showed, 
was the slave of the majority. There was none in the courts ; for the 
Dred Scott decision had been denounced in the Chicago platform as a 
dangerous heresy, and the doctrine upon which Mr. Lincoln had been 
elected had been actually declared illegal by the supreme judicial authority 
of the country. 

In Congress the Northern States had 183 votes ; the South, if unani- 
mous, 120. If then the North was prepared to act in a mass its power 
was irresistible ; and the election of Mr. Lincoln plainly showed that it 
was prepared so to act and to carry out a sectional design. The anti- 
elavery power in the North was now compact and invincible. A party 
opposed to slavery had organized in 1840, with about seven thousand 
voters ; in 1860, it had polled nearly two million votes, and had succeeded 
in electing the President of the United States. The conservative party in 
the North had been thoroughly corrupted. They were beaten in every 
Northern State in 1860, with a single exception, by tlie avowed enemies 
of the South, who, but a few years ago, had been powerless in their midst. 
The leaders of the Northern Democratic party had, in 1856 and in 1860, 
openly taken the position that freedom would be more certainly secured 
in the Territories by the rule of non-intervention than by any other policy 
or expedient. This interpretation of their policy alone saved the Demo- 
cratic party from entire annihilation. The overwhelming pressure of the 
anti-slavery sentiment had prevented their acceding to the Southern plat- 
form in the Presidential canvass. Nothing in the present or in the future 
could be looked for from the so-called conservatives of the North ; and the 
South prepared to go out of a Union which no longer afibrded any 
guaranty for her rights or any permanent sense of security, and which 
had brought her under the domination of a section, the designs of which, 
carried into legislation, would destroy her institutions, and even involve 
the lives of her people. 

Such was the true and overwhelming significance of Mr. Lincoln's 
election to the people of the South. They saw in it the era of a sectional 
domination, which they proposed to encounter, not by revolution, properly 



THE LOGICAL NECESSITY OF DISUNION. 8J 

60 called, not by an attempt to recover by arms tlieir constitutional riglits 
in the Union, bnt simply to escape by withdrawal from the confederation, 
and the resumption of their original character of independent States. 

But again it was urged by the apologists of Mr. Lincoln's election 
that such escape of the South from its results was unfair, in view of the 
liict that during most of the preceding period of the Union, the South liad 
lield in its hands the administration at Washington, and had but little 
reason now to complain that it had passed to those of the rival section. 

This view was not without plausibility, and yet as fallacious as that 
which appealed to the prescriptive rule of majorities in America. The 
South had held political power at Washington for a long time ; but that 
power threatened nothing in the ]S"orth, sought nothing from it, desired 
to disturb nothing in it. It had no aggressive intent : it stood constantly 
on the defensive. It had no sectional history : it was associated with a 
general prosperity of the country. " Do not forget," said Senator Ham- 
mond of South Carolina, when Mr. Seward boasted in the United States 
Senate that the North was about to take control at Washington, — " it can 
never be forgotten — it is w^rittcn on the brightest page of human history — 
that we, the slaveholders of the South, took our country in her infancy, 
and, after ruling her for sixty out of seventy years of her existence, we 
shall surrender her to you without a stain upon her honour, boundless in 
prosperit}', incalculable in her strength, the wonder and the admiration of 
the world. Time will show what you will make of her ; but no time can 
ever diminish our glory or your responsibility." 

When the South held power, it was only to the Korth a certain 
absence from office, a certain exclusion from patronage. But when the 
North was to obtain it, acting nof as a party, but a people united on a 
geographical idea, it was something more than a negative evil or disap- 
pointment to the South ; it was the enthronement at Washington of a 
sectional despotism that threatened the institutions, the property, and the 
lives of the people of the Southern States. Power in the hands of the 
South affected the patronage of a political party in the North, Power in 
the hands of the North affected the safety and happiness of every indi- 
vidual in the Soutli. — It was simply determined by the South to withdraw 
from a game where thcstakes were so unequal, and where her loss would 
have been ruin. 



CHAPTEK Y. 

PKEPAEATIONS OF SOUTH CAROLINA TO WITHDRAW FROM THE UlSriON'. — PASSAGE OF HBB 

ORDINANCE OF SECESSION. THE FEDERAL FORCE IN CHARLESTON HARBOUR EVACUATES 

FORT MOULTRIE, AND OCCUPIES SUMTER. DESCRIPTION OF FORT SUMTER. HOW THB 

SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA WAS ENTERTAINED IN THE NORTH. — THE LEVITT AND 
INCONSISTENCY OF THE NORTH WITH RESPECT TO THIS EVENT. — DOCTRINE OF SECESSION, 
AND NORTHERN PRECEDENTS. — RECORD OF MASSAOHUSSETTS. — MR. QUINCT's DECLARA- 
TION IN CONGRESS. — A DOUBLE JUSTIFICATION OF THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE SOUTHERN 

STATES FROM THE UNION.- — THE RIGHT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. OPINION OF MR. LINCOLN. 

— OPINION OF THE NEW YORK " TRIBUNE." — OPINION OF MR. SEWARD. — THE SECESSION 

QUESTION IN THE COTTON STATES. HESITATION OF GEORGIA. PROJECT OF ALEXANDER 

H. STEPHENS. — SECESSION OF ALL THE COTTON STATES. — SEIZURE OF FEDERAL FORTS AND 
ARSENALS. — FORT PICKENS. — SENATOR YULEE's LETTER. — THE SCENES OF SECESSION 
TRANSFERRED TO WASHINGTON. — RESIGNATION OF SOUTHERN SENATORS. — ^JEFFERSON 
DA vis' FAREWELL SPEECH TO THE FEDERAL SENATE. — SENATOR CLAY's BILL OF INDICT- 
MENT AGAINST THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. — THE CONVENTION AT MONTGOMERY. — CONSTI- 
TUTION OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES. — JEFFERSON DAVIS CHOSEN PRESIDENT. — HIS 

PERSONAL HISTORY. HIS CHARACTER. WHY THE PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT HIM WAS SO 

DIVIDED AND CONTRADICTORY. MEASURES LOOKING TO PACIFICATION. THREE AVENUES 

THROUGH WHICH IT WAS EXPECTED. — EARLY PROSPECTS OF PACIFICATION IN CONGRESS. 
— THE REPUBLICAN " ULTIMATUM." — " THE CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE." — MEASURES OF 
COMPROMISE AND PEACE IN CONGRESS EXCLUSIVELY PROPOSED BY THE SOUTH, AND DE- 
LIBERATELY DEFEATED BY THE NORTH. — THE PEACE CONFERENCE. — ITS FAILURE. — DIS- 
POSITION OF THE BORDER SLAVE STATES. — HOW MISTAKEN BY THE NORTH. — THE VIRGINIA 
CONVENTION. — HOW THE SECESSION PARTY GAINED IN IT. — THE RECORD OF VIRGINIA ON 

THE SUBJECT OF STATE RIGHTS. PRESIDENT BUCHANAN ON THE SECESSION QUESTION. 

HIS WEAK CHARACTER AND UNDECIDED POLICY. — HOW OVER-CENSURED BY THE NORTH. — 

GEN. SCOTT's INTERMEDDLING. HIS IMPRACTICABLE ADVICE. — PRESIDENT BUCHANAN's 

PERFIDY IN THE MOULTRIE-SUMTER AFFAIR. — HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE SOUTH CAROLINA 
DELEGATION. — A SECOND DECEPTION. — THE " STAB OF THE WEST " AFFAIR. — THE SITU- 
ATION AT THE CLOSE OF BUCHANAN's ADMINISTRATION. — THE COUNTEY WAITING FOE THB 
SIGNAL OF COMBAT. 

The telegraph had no sooner announced tlie election of Abraham Lin- 
coln President of the United States than the State of South Carolina pre- 
pared for a deliberate withdrawal from the Union. Considering the argu- 



SECESSION OF SOUTH CAKOLINA. 83 

ment as fully exhausted, she determined to resume the exercise of her 
rights as a sovereign State ; and for this purpose her Legislature called a 
Convention. It assembled in Columbia on the 17th of December, 1860. 
Its sessions were held in a church, over which floated a flag bearing the 
device of a palmetto tree, with un open Bible at its trunk, with the inscrip- 
tion : " God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trou- 
ble, therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed and though 
the mountains be carried into the sea ; the Lord of Hosts is with us — the 
God of Jacob is our refuge." 

On the 18th the Convention adjourned to Charleston, and on the 20th 
of December passed the memorable ordinance of Secession, concluding 
that " the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, 
under the name of ' The United States of America ' is hereby dissolved." 
The ordinance was passed by a unanimous vote. A ceremony was ap- 
pointed for the signing in public of the roll of parchment on which the 
ordinance was engrossed. The public procession entered St. Andrew's 
Hall in order : the President and members of the Convention coming flrst, 
followed by the President and members of the Senate, and the Speaker 
and House of Representatives. Their entry was greeted by loud and pro- 
longed cheers fi'om the spectators ; the proceedings were commenced with 
prayer ; the Attorney-General of the State then announced that the ordi- 
nance had been engrossed by order of the Convention, and the parchment 
roll was signed by the members who were called successively to the table. 
When all had signed, the parchment was raised in the sight of the assem- 
blage, and when the President announced the State of South Carolina an 
Independent Commonwealth, the whole audience rose to their feet, and 
with enthusiastic cheers testified their sense of the thrilling proclamation. 

A few days after this event a memorable event occurred in Charleston 
harbour. On the 26tli of December Major Anderson, who was in com- 
mand of the Federal forces there, evacuated roj:t Moultrie, spiking the 
guns and burning the gun carriages, and occupied Fort Sumter with a 
view of strengthening his position. This movement was efiected as a sur- 
prise under cover of night. The place in which Major Anderson had now 
taken refuge was pronounced by military critics to be well-nigh impreg- 
nable. Fort Sumter was a small work ; but as strong as could well be 
conceived. It was a modern truncated pentagonal fort, rising abruptly 
out of the water at the mouth of Charleston harbour, three and a half 
miles from the city. The foundation was an artificial one, made of chips 
of granite firmly imbedded in the innd and sand, and so well constructed 
that it had cost half a million of dollars, and consumed ten years of labour. 
"When Major Anderson occupied the fortification, it was so nearly com- 
pleted as to admit tlic introduction of its armament. The walls were of 
solid brick and concrete masonry, sixty feet high, and from eight to twelve 



84 THE LOST CAUSE. 

feet in thickness, and pierced for three tiers of guns on the northern, east- 
ern, and western sides. These guns commanded the harbour, thus giving 
the Federal garrison the power to arrest the shipping bound to and from 
the port, and to assume an attitude of hostility inconsistent with the safety 
of that part of the State of South Carolina. 

In the mean time the event of South Carolina's formal withdrawal froni 
tljc Union was treated by the Is^orth generally with derision, Northern 
newspapers scoffed at her ; Northern pictorials abounded witli caricatures 
of Palmetto chivalry ; secession cockades, it was said, would soon pass out 
of fashion, and, on the appearance of the first United States regiment in 
Charleston harbour, would be found as scarce as cherries in the snow. 
But what was most remarkable in tlie treatment of the event by the 
Northern newspapers and politicians was, that they all imited in affecting 
the most entire and ready willingness that South Carolina, and as many 
Slave States as chose to accompany her should go out of the Union when- 
ever they pleased. This affectation, which was half insolence and half 
hypocrisy, was heard everywhere in the North. As long, indeed, as the 
North apprehended no serious consequences, and from its very vanity 
refused to entertain the idea that the South had any means or resources 
for making a serious resistance to the Federal authority, it easily afforded 
to ridicule the movement of South Carolina ; to compare her to a " spoilt 
child," wandering from the fold of a " paternal government ; " and to 
declare that there was really no design to coerce her or her sister States, 
but rather pleasure at the separation. " Let the prodigal go," exclaimed 
one of the political preachers of the North. A God-speed was added by 
Mr. Greeley, of the New York Trib%ine. And yet a few months later, 
and these men and their followers were in agonies of anxiety and parox- 
ysms of fury to reclaim what they then called the " rebel " States, declar- 
ing that their cities should be laid in ashes, and their soil sown witli blood ; 
while the beuevolent Tribune drew from its imagination and hopes a pic- 
tui-e, not of the returned prodigal, but of punished " rebels " returning 
home to find their wdves and children cowering in rags, and Famine sit- 
ting at the fireside.* 

* (From the New York Tribune, of Nov. 26, and Dec. 17, 18G0.) 

" We hold with Jefferson to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish forms of 
government that have become oppressive or injurious, and if the Cotton States shall become satis- 
fi&i that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The 
right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless, and v/e do not see how one 
party can have a right to do what another party has a right to prevent. Whenever a considerable 
section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures de- 
signed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a Republic whereof one section is pinned to the 

residue by bayonets If ever seven or eight States send agents to Washington to say, 

We want to go out of the Union,' we shall feel constrained by our devotion to human hberty, to 
6ay, ' Let them go ! ' And we do not see how we could take the other side, without coming in 



DOCTRINE OF SECESSION, AND NOETHEKN PKECEDENTS. OS 

But had the Northern people really been candid and just in tlieir jiro- 
fesscd willingness to let the South go, they might have found, alike in the 
political precedents of the country and in the sound reason of its states 
men, ample grounds for such a disposition. The doctrine of State seces- 
sion was no new thing in the North. The right of it had been reserved 
by the State of New York, on her adoption of the Federal Constitution. 
The exercise of such right had been threatened on four separate occasions 
by the State of Massachusetts. She liad threatened to secede from the 
Union, wir.h reference to the adjustment of the State debts ; again, on 
account of tlie Louisiana Purchase ; thirdly, because of the war of 
1812-'14, when, as Mr. Jefferson said, " four of tlie Eastern States were 
only attached to the Union like so many inanimate bodies to living men ; " 
and fourthly, on the annexation of Texas, when her Legislature actually 
resolved in advance tliat this event would be good cause for the dissolution 
of the Union. With reference to the Louisiana Purchase, and the bill to 
admit into the Union the Territory of Orleans, under the name of Louis- 
iana, Mr. Quincy, of Massachusetts, had placed on record in Congress a 
definition of the remedy of secession ; for, at the instance of members, he 
had put in writing, and placed on the desk of the House of Representa- 
tives, the following proposition : " If this bill passes, it is my deliberate 
opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of this Union ; that it will free the 
States from their moral obligations, and, as it will be the right of all, m 
it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation — arnica 
bly, if they can ; violently, if they must." 

But it is not necessary to make here any discussion or recrimination on 
the subject of State secession. For the South claimed a double justification 
of her withdrawal from the Union ; and in putting it on tlie alternative of 
that right of self-government proclaimed in the American Declaration of 
Lidependence, and existing in all republican systems, she could claim its 
recognition from the highest sources, both of ofiicial and popular authority 
in the North. 

Indeed, the President-elect, Mr. Lincoln, had, at another period of his 
public life, made this remarkable declaration : " Any people, anywhere, 
being inclined and having the power, have tlie right to rise up and shake 

direct conflict with those rights of man wliich we hold paramount to all political arrangements, now- 
ever convenient and advantageous." 

(From the same, of Jlay 1, 18G1.) 

" But, nevertheless, we mean to conquer them [the Confederate States], not merely to defeat, 
but to conquer, to subjugate them. But when the rebellious traitors are overwhelmed in the field 
Aud scattered like leaves before an angry wind, it must not be to rcticrii to peaceful and contented 
homes 1 They must find povertij at their firesides, and see pi-ivation in the aiixious ei/es of mothers, 
and the rags of children. The whole coast of the South, from the Delaware to the Rio Grande, muai 
\e fl solitude. 



86 THE LOST CAUSE. 

off the existing Government, and form a new one that suits them better. 
Nor is this right confined to cases where the people of an existing Govern 
ment may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, 
may revolutionize, putting down a minority intermingled with or near 
about them, who may oppose them." 

On the eve of hostilities the New York Tribune declared : " Whenever 
portion of this Union, large enough to form an independent, self-sustain- 
ing nation, shall see fit to say authentically to the residue, ' We want to 
get away from you,' we shall say — and we trust self-respect, if not regard 
for the principle of self-government, will constrain the residue of the Amer 
lean people to say — Go ! " 

At a later period, Mr. Seward, then President Lincoln's Secretary of 
State, used the following language to Mr. Adams, the United States Min- 
ister at London : " For these reasons he [Mr. Lincoln] would not be dis- 
posed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs [the Secessionists], namely, that 
the Federal Government could not reduce the seceding States to obedience 
by conquest, even although he were disposed to question that proposition. 
But in fact the President willingly accepts it as true. Only an imperial 
or despotic government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insur- 
rectionary members of the State. This Federal Kepublican system of ours 
is, of all forms of government, the very one most unfitted for such a 
labour." 

It was in the face of this plain and abundant record that the North, as 
we shall hereafter see, prepared to make upon the seceded Southern States 
a war the most terrible in modern annals, and the most monstrous of 
Christian times. But we must return here to the course of events imme- 
diately following the secession of South Carolina. 

There could be no doubt of the disposition of all the Cotton States to 
accompany South Carolina in her withdrawal from the Union, and to 
make common cause with her. But there was some hesitation as to the 
time and mode of action ; and in Georgia especially there was a strong 
party in favour of holding a conference of all the Southern States before 
taking the decisive and irrevocable step. The influence of Alexander H. 
Stephens was not only given to this party in Georgia, but betrayed a 
design to keep the State in the Union. He had made a speech of great 
ingenuity, to show that the cause of the Union was not yet hopeless, that 
all honourable means should be used to save it — that, notwithstanding the 
election of Mr. Lincoln, the Northern States might yield to a determined 
admonition from the South. But to this art of the demagogue there were 
plain and forcible replies. Mr. Howell Cobb urged that delay was dan- 
gerous, and that the Legislature ought to pass an act of secession to be 
ratified by the people ; Mr. Toombs insisted that all hope of justice from 
the North was gone, and that nothing remained but separation, and, if 



eECESSION OF ALL THE COTl'ON STATES. 87 

necessary, war to maintain tlie rights of the South ; and while the discus- 
sion was going on, the Major of Savannah liad abeady pledged fifty thou- 
sand Georgians to rally to the aid of South Carolina, if needed. 

It was impossible for any checks of authority or arts of the demagogue 
to restrain the popular sentiment in the Cotton States that clamoured to 
follow the example of South Carolina. On the Tth day of January, 1861, 
the State of Florida seceded from the Union. Mississippi followed on the 
9th day of the same month ; Alabama on the 11th ; Georgia on the 20th ; 
Louisiana on the 26th ; and Texas on the 1st of February. Thus, in less 
than three montlis after the announcement of Mr. Lincoln's election, all 
the Cotton States had seceded from the Union. 

They had done more than this. They had secured all the forts, arse- 
nals, and government places lying within their territory, with the excep- 
tion of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour, and Fort Pickens near Pensa- 
cola. At this latter place was to occur a history somewhat similar to that 
of Sumter. 

Here was a fine bay ; a splendid navy yard ; and the principal depot 
of the Gulf fleet. In the beginning of 1861, a small military force was 
stationed there in charge of the forts. These forts were, Fort McKae, on 
the main land, with a lagoon behind it, and guarding one side of the har- 
bour ; Fort Barancas, directly facing the entrance of the harbour, and 
Fort Pickens on the other, or east side of the harbour entrance. This lat- 
ter was on the extremity of the long, low, sandy Santa Rosa Island, which 
stretched away to the eastward, and formed an excellent breakwater to the 
bay. The navy yard was about a mile inside the bay, beyond Fort Baran- 
cas, and was thus in an admirably safe position. 

The seizure of these places was earnestly and instantly advised by Sen- 
ator Yulee, of Florida, in private letters written from his seat in the United 
States Senate. Fort Barancas and McEae, with the navy yard, were at 
once surrendered by the naval commandant ; but Lieut. Slemmers, not 
approving such a course, secretly crossed ov^er to Fort Pickens, as Major 
Anderson did from Moultrie to Sumter, and there stationed himself, while 
the ingenuity and entei-prise of the government at Washington were to be 
taxed for his reinforcement. 

The scene of secession was now to be transferred to Washington. 
On the 21st of January, 1861, an impressive and memorable event 
occurred in the Senate of the United States. On that day, resignations 
of certain distinguished Senators were announced, in consequence of tlie 
secession of their States. Even the Eepublican Senators treated the 
occasion with respect ; the chamber was pervaded by an air of solemnity ; 
and the galleries were crowded by a vast concourse of spectators, the intel- 
ligent of whom recognized in the scene transpiring before their eyes the 
seremony of the first serious disintegration of the authority at Washington. 



88 THE LOST CAUSE. 

The Senators who withdrew on this day were Mr. Jefferson Davis, 
of Mississippi, Messrs. Fitzpatrick and Clay, of Alabama, and Messrs 
Yulee and Mallory, of Florida. Most of them made temperate and 
courteous speeches in announcing the fact and occasion of their resig- 
nation. Mr. Davis, although at the time much prostrated by ill health, 
made a speech of remarkable force and dignity ; and turning to different 
members, declared that he was the type of the general feelings of his 
constituents toward theirs ; that he felt no hostility to them ; that he 
went thence unencumbered by the remembrance of any injury received ; 
but he said, if the JSTorth had resolved on hostile relations towards the 
seceded States, then " we will invoke the God of our fathers, who deliv- 
ered them from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of 
the bear ; and thus, putting our trust in God and in our own firm hearts 
and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may." 

Mr. C. C. Clay of Alabama was more violent. In severing his con- 
nection with the Senate, he took occasion to make out a very full bill of 
indictment against the Republican party, and to recount the grievances 
that impelled the South to separate herself from the Union. A portion 
of his speech is interesting here as the historical statement on the side of 
the South of the causes and necessity of Disunion, made by one of her 
leading statesmen, and reflecting much both of the intelligence and 
passion of his countrymen. He said : 



" It is now nearly forty-two years since Alabama was admitted into the Union. She 
entered it, as she goes out of it, while the Confederacy was in convulsions, caused by the 
hostility of the North to the domestic slavery of the South. Not a decade, nor scarce a 
lustrum, has elapsed, since her birth, that has not been strongly marked by proofs of the 
growth and power of that anti-slavery spirit of the Northern people which seeks the 
overthrow of that domestic institution of the South which is not only the chief source 
of her prosperity, but the very basis of her social order and state polity. It is to-day the 
master-spirit of the Northern States, and had, before the secession of Alabama, of litissis- 
sippi, of Florida, or of South Carolina, severed most of the bonds of the Union. It 
denied ns Christian communion, because it could not endure what it styles the moral 
leprosy of slaveholding ; it refused us permission to sojourn, or even to pass through the 
North, Avith our property ; it claimed freedom for the slave if brought by his master into 
a Northern State ; it violated the Constitution and treaties and laws of Congress, because 
designed to protect that property ; it refused ns any share of lands acquired maiidy by 
our diplomacy and blood and treasure ; it refused our property any shelter or security 
beneath the flag of a common government ; it robbed ns of our property, and refused to 
restore it ; it refused to deliver criminals against our laws, who fled to the North with 
our property or our blood upon their hands ; it tlireatened us, by solemn legislative acts, 
with ignominious punishment if we pursued our property into a Northern State ; it mur- 
dered Southern men when seeking the recovery of their property on Northern soil ; it 
invaded the borders of Southern States, poisoned their wells, burnt their dwellings, and 
murdered their people ; it denounced us by deliberate resolves of popular meetings, of 
party conventions, and of religious and even legislative assemblies, as habitual violators 



SPEECH OF C. C. CLAY. 89 

cf the laws of God and the rights of humanity ; it exerted all the moral and physical 
agencies that human ingenuity ca,n devise or diabolical malice can employ to heap odium 
and infamy upon us, and to make us a by-word of hissing and of scorn throughout the 
civilized world. Yet we bore all this for many years, and might have borne it for many 
more, under the oft-repeated assurance of our Northern friends, and the too fondly 
cherished hope that these wrongs and injuries were committed by a minority party, and 
had not the sanction of the majority of the people, who would, in time, rebuke oxx 
enemies, and redress our grievances. 

" But the fallacy of these promises and folly of our hopes have been too clearly and 
conclusively proved in late elections, especially the last two Presidential elections, to 
permit us to indulge longer in such pleading delusions. The platform of the Eepublican 
party of 1856 and 1860 we regard as a libel upon the character and a declaration of war 
against the lives and property of the Southern people. No bitterer or more oftensive 
calumny could be uttered against them than is expressed in denouncing their system of 
slavery and polygamy as "twin relics of barbarism." It not only reproaches us as un- 
christian and heathenish, but imputes a sin and a crime deserving universal scorn and 
universal enmity. No sentiment is more insulting or more hostile to our domestic tran- 
quillity, to our social order, and our social existence, than is contained in the declaration 
that our negroes are entitled to liberty and equality with the white man. It is in spirit, 
if not effect, as strong an incitement and invocation to servile insurrection, to murder, 
arson, and other crimes, as any to be found in abolition literature. 

" And to aggravate the insult which is offered us in demanding equality with us for 
our slaves, the same platform denies us equality with Northern white men or free 
negroes, and brands us as an inferiour race, by pledging the Eepublican party to resist 
our entrance into the Territories with our slaves, or the extension of slavery, which — as 
its founders and leaders truly assert — must and will effect its extermination. To crown 
the climax of insult to our feelings and menace of our rights, this party nominated to the 
Presidency a man who not only endorses the platform, but promises, in his zealous sup- 
port of its principles, to disregard the judgments of your courts, the obligations of your 
Constitution, and the requirements of his official oath, by approving any bill prohibiting 
slavery in the Territories of the United States. 

" A large majority of the Northern people have declared at the ballot-box their ap- 
proval of the platform and the candidates of that party in the late Presidential election. 
Thus, by the solemn verdict of the people of the North, the slaveholding communities 
of the South are ' outlawed, branded with ignominy, consigned to execration, and ulti- 
mate destruction.' " 

" Sir, are we looked upon as more or less than men ? Is it expected that we will or can ex- 
ercise that god-like virtue which ' beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things ; 
endureth all things ; ' which teaches us to love our enemies, and bless tliem that curse us? 
Are we devoid of the sensibilities, the sentiments, the passions, the reason, and the instincts 
of mankind ? Have we no pride of honour, no sense of shame, no reverence of our ances- 
tors, no care of our posterity, no love of home, or family, or friends ? Must we confess 
our baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, dishonour ourselves, degrade our posterity, 
abandon our homes, and flee from our country, all for the sake of the Union? Must we 
agree to live under the ban of our own Government? Must we acquiesce in the inaugu- 
ration of a President, chosen by confederate, but unfriendly. States, whose political faith 
constrains him, for his conscience and country's sake, to deny us our constitutional rights, 
because elected according to the forms of the Constitution? Must we consent to live 
under a Government Avhich we believe will henceforth be controlled and administered 
by those who not only deny us justice and equality, and brand us as inferiours, but 



90 THE LOST CArSE. 

whose avowed principles and policy must destroy our domestic tranquillity, imperil the 
lives of our wives and children, degrade and dwarf, and ultimately destroy, our State? 
Must we live, by choice or compulsion, under the rule of those who present us the dire 
alternative of an ' irrepressible conflict ' with the Northern people, in defence of our altars, 
and our fireside, or the manumission of our slaves, and the admission of them to social 
and political equality ? No, sir, no ! The freemen of Alabama have proclaimed to the 
world that they will not ; and have proved their sincerity by seceding from the Union, 
and hazarding all tbe dangers and difficulties of a separate and independent station among 
the nations of the earth." 

Mr, Jefferson Davis liad resigned from the Senate of the United States 
to encounter a responsibility and accept a trust the greatest of modern 
times. Public opinion in all the seceded States had long designated him 
as the leader of their new destinies. A convention of delegates from the 
then six seceded States assembled in Congress at Montgomery, Alabama, 
on the 4th of February, 1861, for the purpose of organizing a provisional 
government. This body adopted a Constitution for the Confederate States 
on the 8th of February. On the 9th of February, Congress proceeded to 
the election of a President and Yice-Presiclent, and unanimously agreed 
upon Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, for President, and Alexander H. 
Stephens, of Georgia, for Yice-Presideut. 

The framers of the new government at Montgomery studiously ad- 
hered, in the main features of their plan, to the Washington model ; but 
the Constitution adopted by them differed in some particulars from 
that of the United States. And it is to be remarked that at every point : 
of difference it made an undoubted improvement, or corrected some ac- 
knowledged evil of former times. The Confederate Constitution absolutely 
prohibited the over-sea slave-trade ; that of the United States did not. 
It permitted cabinet ministers to take part in the discussions of Congress. 
It prohibited bounties or duties to foster any branch of industry. After 
a specified time the post-office was required to cover its own expenses 
'No extra compensation was to be paid to any contractor. Tlie President 
was to hold office for six years, and was not to be reeligible. The subor- 
dinate government officers were not to be removed by the Presiden 
without a report to the Senate giving his reasons. The right of propert; 
in slaves and that of taking them into any Territory were expressly 
stated ; but in this, it was claimed that no new principle was adopted or 
laid down, which did not already exist in the Constitution of the old 
Union. 

The choice of President was thought at the time to be quite as fit and 
admirable as the other work of the Convention. But of this, the most 
serious doubts were hereafter to arise. Jefferson Davis, the President of 
the Confederate States, was a name that was associated with much that 
was brilliant and honourable in the history of the old government. Ho 



s. 

m 



CHAEACTEK OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 91 

had served that government in the field and in council. He had received 
a military education at West Point ; had served in the Mexican War, at 
the head ■'of a regiment of volunteer riflemen, winning distinction at 
Monterey and Buena Yista ; and had been called to the cabinet of 
President Pierce, as Secretary of War ; in tlie administration of whiclj 
office he increased the strength of the United States army, proposed to 
abolish the permanent stafi'-organization for one of details on stafi'-duty 
and sent to the Crimea a commission to report upon the state of the 
science of war, and the condition of European armies. He re-entered 
political life as a Senator in Congress. In that highest school of debate 
in America, lie was distinguished for a style of polished and graceful 
oratory ; and speaking in moderate rhetorical figures, and in subdued 
tones, he was never the flaming fanatic or popular exhorter, but just the 
speaker to address with agreeable effect a small assembly of intelligent 
and cultivated persons. 

Mr. Davis was a man whose dignity,* whose political scholarship, 
whose classical and lofty expressions, whose literary style — unexcelled, 
perhaps, in the power of statement by any cotemporary model, — whose 
pure morals, well-poised manners and distinguished air, were likely to 
adorn the high station to which he had been raised, and calculated to 
qualify him, in many striking respects, as the representative of the proud 
and chivalrous people of the South. But these accomplishments con- 
cealed from the hasty and superficial view defects of character which were 
most serious, indeed almost vital in their consequences, and which were 
rapidly to be developed in the course of his administration of the new 
government. His dignity was the mask of a peculiar obstinacy, which, 
stimulated by an intellectual conceit, spurned the counsels of equal minds, 
and rejected the advice of the intelligent, while it was curiously not incon- 
sistent with a complete subserviency to the smallest and most unworthy 
of favourites. His scholarship smelt of the closet. He had no practical 
judgment ; his intercourse with men was too distant and constrained for 
studies of human nature ; and his estimate of the value of particular men 
was grotesque and absurd. The especial qualifications of a great leader 
in the circumstances in which Mr. Davis was placed would have been 
strong and active common-sense, quick apprehension, knowledge of men, 
and a disposition to consult the aggregate wisdom of the people, and to 
gather the store of judgment from every possible source of practical 
advice within its reach. Mr. Davis had none of these plain qualities. 
He had, instead of these, certain elegant and brilliant accomplishments, 
which dazzled the multitude, confused the world in its judgment of hia 
merits, smd gave him a singular reputation, in which admirers and censora 
were strangely mingled : one party, looking at a distance, extravagant in 
its praise, the other, having a nearer view, unlimited in its condemnation. 

* See Appendix. 



92 THE LOST CAUSE. 

But we must reserve a fuller estimate of President Davis' character for 
other periods in our narrative. While the formidable events we liave 
just been relating — that of the secession of seven Southern States, and 
their erection of a new government — were taking place, there were on 
foot measures of paciiication, to which attention nmst be given as well as 
to measures of hostility. These measures looking towards peace involve 
the action of the Congress of the United States ; the action of States 
outside of Congress ; and certain strange proceedings on the part of the 
Federal Executive, wliicli were undoubtedly influential in determining 
the question of peace or war. 

In the early part of the session of the United States Congress, a hope 
of pacification had been generally indulged by the country, and was 
largely shared by some of the Southern members. Even after the seces- 
sion of South Carolina, Southern members, who made violent Disunion 
speeches on the floor of Congress, yet entertained in their private conver- 
sation a j)i'ospect of adjustment, and confidentially advised their constitu- 
ents not to sell their city lots in Washington, or dispose of their property 
interests in the Northern States. But as the session progressed it became 
evident that no concessions were to be expected from Congress ; that the 
temper of the Eepublicau party was unyielding and insolent ; that it was 
not impressed with any serious danger, and even in the event of a crisis, 
was confident of subduing the South with such expedition and decision 
as to make an issue of arms rather to be desired than otherwise. Indeed, 
the ultimatum of the Bepublican party was distinctly enough announced 
in resolutions off'ered by Mr. Clarke of New Hampshire, which passed 
both houses of Congress. These resolutions declared that the provisions of 
the Constitution were already ample enough for any emergencies ; that it 
was to be obeyed rather than amended ; and that an extrication from 
present dangers "was to be looked for in strenuous eflforts to preserve the 
peace, protect the public property, and enforce the laws, rather than in 
new guaranties for peculiar interests, compromises for particular difiiculties, 
or concessions to unreasonable demands. Under this surface of smooth 
words, the proposition was plain that the demands of the South were 
unreasonable, and not to be allowed, and were to be resisted to the 
extremities of coercion and war. 

Committees in both houses had been appointed to consider the state 
of the Union. Neither committee was able to agree upon any mode of 
settlement of the pending issue between the North and the South. The 
Republican members in both committees rejected propositions acknowl- 
edging the right of property in slaves, or recommending the division of 
the Territories between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States by 
a geographical line. 

On the 18th of December, 1860, Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky had 



J 



THE CKITTENDEN COMPKOMISE. 93 

ntroduced in tlie Senate a series of resolutions wliich contained a plan 
)f compromise, wLiicli it was long hoped would be effected, and wliicli for 
nontbs continued a topic of discussion in Congress. The features of this 
jlan may be briefly indicated. It sought to incorporate into the Consti- 
;ution the following propositions : 

1. That south of a certain geographical parallel of latitude. Congress, 
)r a Territorial Legislature, shall have no power to abolish, modify, or in 
my w ay interfere with slavery in the Territories. 

2. That Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery in the 
[)isiriot of Columbia ; 

8. Or in the forts, arsenals, dock-yards, or wherever else the Federal 
government has exclusive jurisdiction. 

4. That in case of the failure to arrest any alleged " fugitive from 
ervice," from violence to the officer of the law, or iutimidation of his 
Luthority, the community where such faikire took place shall be compelled 
o j)ay the value of such alleged fugitive to the owner thereof, and may 
)e prosecuted for that purpose and to that effect. 

The fate of this measure was significant enough of the views and tem- 
)er of the Republican party, if any additional evidence of these had been 
leeded. In the Senate it was voted against by every Eepublican senator; 
md ao-ain, every Republican in that body voted to substitute for Mr. Crit- 
enden's propositions the resolutions of Mr. Clarke, to which reference has 
Jready been made. 

In the House, certain propositions moved by Mr. Etheridge, which 
vere even less favourable to the South than Mr. Crittenden's, were not 
iven entertained, on a vote of yeas and nays ; and a resolution giving a 
)ledge to sustain the President in the use of force against seceding States 
vas adopted by a large inajority. 

It is remarkable that of all the compromises proposed in this Congress 
or preserving the peace of the country, none came from Northern men ; 
hey came from the South, and were defeated by the JSTorth ! The " Crit- 
enden Compromise" (for a geographical limit within wliich to tolerate^ not 
istablish slavery in the Territories) was, as we have seen, the princi])al fea- 
ure of these pacific negotiations ; it was considered fully capable to recon- 
truct the Union ; it had even the adhesion or countenance of such influ- 
intial leaders of Secession as Toombs, of Georgia, and Jefferson Davis, the 
uture President of the Southern Confederacy ; it constituted under the 
:ircumstances the only possible existing hope of saving the Union. But, 
mfortunately for the peace of the country, the North deliberately de 
eated it. 

While the door of Congress w^as thus closed to peace, there was outside 
>f it a remarkable effort at conciliation, which testified to the popular 
mxiety on the subject. TRe action of the States w\as invoked. Commis- 



94 THE LOST CAUSE. 

sioners from twenty States, composing a " Peace Conference," held at the 
request of the Legislature of Virginia, met in Washington on the 4:th of 
February, and adjourned February 27th. All the Border Slave States 
were represented. Most of the delegates from these States were willing to 
accept the few and feeble guaranties of the Crittenden proposition. The 
ultimate result was the recommendation of a project to Congress which, in 
detail, was less favourable to the South than that contained in Mr. Critten- 
den's resolutions, but generally identical with it in respect of running a 
geographical line between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding territo- 
ries, and enforcing the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law, One cm-ious 
additional feature was that no territory slioidd in the future be acquired 
by the United States, without the concurrence of the Senators from the 
Southern States and those from the Northern States. But it is useless to 
go into the details of the rejDort of the Peace Commissioners ; for it never 
received any steady or respectful consideration in either house of Con- 
gress. In the Senate it was summarily voted down by a vote of twenty- 
eight to seven ; and the House, on a call of yeas and nays, actually refused 
to receive it. 

There w^as an evident disposition on the part of the so-called Border 
Slave States to avoid a decisive step. To this hesitation" the North gave 
a significance which it did not really possess. It is true that Tennessee 
and North Carolina decided against calling a State Convention ; but this 
action implied simply that they were awaiting the results of the peace 
propositions to which they had committed themselves. The State of Vir- 
ginia, which had distinguished herself by a conspicuous eflbrt to save the 
Union — for it was on the unanimous invitation of her Legislature that the 
Peace Conference had been assembled — had called a State Convention in 
the month of January. It was elected on the 4th of February ; and the 
Northern party found singular gratification in the circumstance that a 
majority of Union men was. returned to an assembly so critical. 

There is no doubt the Convention of Virginia was sincerely anxious by 
every means in its power to restore the Union. But the party in favour 
of secession was steadily strengthening in view of the obstinate front 
presented by the Black Republican party in Congress. Delegates 
who "had been returned as Union men, were afterwards instructed to 
vote otherwise. Petersburg, Culpepper, Cumberland, Prince Edward, 
Botetourt, Wythe, and many other towns and counties, held meetings and 
urged prompt secession. The action of the Federal authorities was daily 
becoming more irritating and alarming. A garrison was thrown into Fort 
Washington on the Potomac ; and it was observed that guns were being 
mounted on the parapet of Fortress Monroe, and turned inland upon the 
very bosom of Virginia. 

However Virginia might have lingered, in the hope that the breach 



i 



\ 



VIRGINIA AN ADVOCATE OF STATE RIGHTS. 95 

tLat liad taken place in the Union might be repaired by new constitu- 
tional guaranties, there could be no doubt, in view of her record in the 
past, that whenever the issue of war was made, whenever the coercion of 
the seceded States should be attempted, she would then be on the side of 
Southern Independence, prompt to risk all consequences. The Federal 
government could not have been blind to this ; for the precedents of the 
State were well known. The Kesolutions of '98 and '99, originated by 
Mr. Jefferson, constituted the text-book of State-Rights, and vindicated 
and maintained the right and duty of States suffering grievances from un- 
just and unconstitutional Federal legislation, to judge of the wrong aa 
well as of " the mode and measure of redress." At every period of con- 
troversy between Federal and State authority, the voice of Virginia was 
the first to be heard in behalf of State Rights. In 1832-33, the Governor 
of Virginia, John Floyd, the elder, had declared that Federal troops should 
not pass the banks of the Potomac to coerce South Carolina into obedience 
to the tariff laws, unless over his dead body ; and a majority of the Legisla- 
ture of Virginia had then indicated their recognition of the right of a State 
to secede from the Union. At every stage of the agitation of the slavery 
question in Congress and in the Iforthern States, Virginia declared her 
sentiments, and entered upon her legislative records declarations that she 
would resist the aggressive spirit of the ISTorthem majority, even to the 
disruption of the ties that bound her to the Union. In 1848, she had 
resolved, in legislative council, that she would not submit to the passage 
of the Wilmot proviso, or any kindred measure. From the date of the 
organization of the Anti-Slavery party, her people, of all parties, had 
declared that the election of an abolitionist to the Presidency would be a 
virtual declaration of war against the South. The Legislature that assem- 
bled a few weeks after Mr. Lincoln's election, declared, in effect, with only 
four dissenting voices, that the interests of Virginia were thoroughly iden- 
tified with those of the other Southern States, and that any intimation 
from any source, that her people were looking to any combination in the 
last resort other than union with them, was unpatriotic and treasonable. — 
In view of a record so plain and explicit, it was madness to suppose that 
the Convention of 1861 entertained any desire to cling to the Union other 
than by constitutional guaranties, or that Virginia would hesitate for a 
moment to separate from that Union whenever it should actually under- 
take to subjugate her sister States of the South. 

We have seen that there was but little prospect of j^eace in the pro- 
ceedings of Congress, or in the action of the people, outside of Congress, 
througli the forms of State authority. The conduct of the Federal Execu- 
tive afforded no better prospect ; indeed, instead of being negative in its 
results, it did much to vex the country and to provoke hostility. 

The policy of Mr. Buchanan was unfortunately weak and hesitating — ■ 



96 THE LOST CAUSE. 

au attempt at ambidexteritj, in whicli he equally failed to conciliate the 
Secessionists and -paeity their designs, or to make any resolute effort to 
save the Union. He had, in his message to Congress, denounced secession 
as revolutionary ; and although he was clear in the constitutional proposi- 
tion that there was no right of " coercion " on the part of the Federal 
Government, yet he did but little, and that irresolutely, to put that Gov- 
ernment in a state of defence, in the event of violence on the part of the 
seceded States, This timid old man — a cautious, secretive politician, who 
never felt the warmth of an emotion, and had been bred in the harsh 
school of political selfishness — attempted to stand between two parties ; 
and the result was embarrassment, double-dealing, weak and despicable 
querulousness, and, finally, the condemnation and contempt of each of the 
parties bet^veen whom he attempted to distribute his favours. 

It is true that Mr. Buchanan was over-censured by the ISTorth for his 
failure to reinforce the garrisons of the Southern forts. When Gen. Scott. 
on the 15th of December, "1860, recommended that nine Federal fortifica- 
tions in the Southern States should be effectively garrisoned, there were 
only five companies of Federal troops within his reach ; and he could 
only have intended in proposing such an impracticable measure to make 
a certain reputation rather as a politician than as a general. Again, when, 
six weeks later, Gen. Scott renewed this recommendation, the fact was 
that the whole force at his command consisted of six hundred recruits, 
obtained since the date of his first recommendation, in addition to the 
five regular companies. The army of the United States was still out of 
reach on the remote frontiers ; and Gen. Scott must have known that it 
would be impossible to withdraw it during mid-winter in time for this 
military operation. 

But w^iile Mr. Buchanan's course m refusing to distribute a thousand 
men among the numerous forts in the Cotton States, as well as Fortress 
Monroe, is, in a measure, defensible against Northern criticism, for such 
a proceeding would have been an exhibition of weakness instead of 
strength, and, at the time, a dangerous provocation to the seceded States, 
yet, in this same matter, he was about to commit an act of perfidy, for 
which there can be neither excuse nor disguise. He had refused to re- 
inforce Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbour, for the reason that it might 
provoke and alarm the Secession party, and disturb the movements in 
Congress and in the country then lookhig towards peace. But, for the 
same reason, he gave the distinct and solemn pledge tliat he would permit 
the military status quo in Charleston Harbour to remain unless South 
Carolina herself should attempt to disturb it. Ko language could be more 
explicit than that in which this pledge was conveyed. 

The official instructions made on the 11th of December to Major 
Anderson, then in command of Fort Moultrie, ran as follows : 



rKESEDENT BUCHANAJSt's PERFIDY. 97 

'' Toil are aware of tlie great anxiety of the Secretary of War tliat a 
collision of the troops with the people of the State shall be avoided, and 
of his studied determination to pursue a course with reference to the mili- 
tary force and forts in this harbour, which shall guard against such a 
collision. He has, therefore, carefully abstained from increasing the force 
at tliis point, or taking any measures which might add to the present 
excited state of the public mind, or which Avould throw any doubt on the 
confidence he feels that South Carolina will not attempt by violence to 
obtain possession of the public works or interfere with their occupancy. 
The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy more 
than one of the throe forts, but an attach on or attempt to tahe possession 
of either one of them xoill he regarded as an act of hostility^ and you may 
then put your conmiand into either of them which you may deem most 
proper to increase its power of resistance." 

On the day previous to the date of these instructions, the South Caro- 
lina delegation had called on the President ; the distinct object of their 
visit being to consult with him as to the best means of avoiding a hostile 
collision between their State and the Federal Government. At the in- 
stance of Mr. Buchanan, their communication was put in writing, and 
they presented him the following note : 

" In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our 
strong conviction that neither the constituted authorities, nor any hody of the people of 
the State of South Carolina, will either attack or molest the United States forts in the 
harbour of Charleston, previously to the action of the convention ; and we hope and 
believe not until an oifer has been made through an accredited representative to negoti- 
ate for an amicable arrangement of all matters between the State and Federal Govern- 
ment, provided that no reinforcements be sent into these forts, and their relative military 
status shall remain as at present.'''' 

Yet we have seen how this military status was disturbed by Major 
Anderson's removal to Fort Sumter, an act which greatly strengthened 
his position, which put him from an untenable post into what was then 
supposed to be an impregnable defence, which changed the status, quite as 
much so as an accession of numerical force, and which, to the State of 
South Carolina, could have none other than a hostile significance. Mr. 
Buchanan was reminded of his pledge, and nsked to order Major Anderson 
back to Fort Moultrie. He refused to do so. Mr. Floyd, of Virginia, the 
Secretary of "War, in view of the President's violation of faith, and the 
atempt to make him a party to it, withdrew from the cabinet in a high 
state of indignation ; and thus was accomplished the first act of Mr. Bu- 
chanan's perfidy on the eve of war. 

The second was soon to follow. After determining not to order Ander- 
son l)ack to Fort Moullrie, President Buchanan determined to take 
7 



98 THE LOST TAUSE. 

another stej^ — actually to send troops to Sumter. Under liis iirection the 
"War Department chartered a steamer called the " Star of the West," 
which sailed from New York on the 5tli of January, 1861, having on 
board two hundred and fifty soldiers, besides stores and munitions of war. 
A specious plea was originated for this expedition, and it was declared 
that its purpose was to provision a " starving garrison." When the vessel 
appeared off Charleston Harbour, on the 9tli of January, heading in from 
the sea, and taking the channel for Sumter, a battery at Poi}it Cumminga 
on Morris Island opened upon her at long range. Not daring to penetrate 
the fire, the Star of the West ran out to sea with all speed ; and the 
soldiers on board of her were subsequently disembarked at their former 
quarters on Governour's Island. 

When the result of this expedition was known, Mr. Buchanan affected 
surprise and indignation at the reception given the Federal reinforce- 
ments, and declared that the expedition had been ordered with the con- 
currence of his Cabinet. Mr. Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, who yet 
remained in the Cabinet, repelled the slander, denounced the movement 
as underhanded, and as a breach not only of good faith towards South 
Carolina, but as one of personal confidence between the President and 
himself, and left the Cabinet with expressions of indignation and con- 
tempt. 

Mr. Buchanan's administration terminated with results alike fearful to 
the country and dishonourable to himself. He retired from office, after 
having widened the breach between North and South, and given new 
cause of exasperation in the contest ; obtaining the execrations of both 
parties ; and going down to history with the brand of perfidy. When he 
ceased to be President on the 4th of March, 1861, seven Southern States 
were out of the Union ; they had erected a new government ; they had 
secured every Federal fort within their limits with two exceptions — 
Sumter and Pickens ; they had gathered not only munitions of war, but 
had obtained great additions in moral power ; and although they still 
deplored a war between the two sections as " a policy detrimental to the 
civilized world," they had openly and rapidly prepared for it. Fort 
Moultrie and Castle Pinckney had been occupied by the South Carolina 
troops ; Fort Pulaski, the defence of the Savannah, had been taken ; the 
Arsenal at Mount Vernon, Alabama, with twenty thousand stand of arms, 
had been seized by the Alabama troops ; Fort Morgan, in Mobile Bay, 
had been taken ; Forts Jackson, St. Philip, and Pike, near New Orleans, 
had been captured by the Louisiana troops ; the Pensacola Navy- Yard 
and Forts Barrancas and MeRae had been taken, and the siege of Fort 
Pickens commenced ; the Baton Pouge Arsenal had been surrendered to 
the Louisiana troops ; the New Orleans Mint and Custom-House had been 
taken ; the Little Rock Arsenal had been seized by the Arkansas troops ; 



1 



THE COUNTKT AWAITING THE CONFLICT. 99 

and on the 18th of February, Gen. Twiggs had transferred the military 
posts and public property in Texas to the State authorities. 

It is remarkable that all these captures and events had been accom- 
plished without the sacrifice of a single life, or the oflFusion of one drop of 
blood. It was, perhaps, in view of this circumstance, that people lingered 
in the fancy that there would be no war. Yet the whole country was 
agitated with passion ; the frown of war was already visible ; and it 
needed but some Cadmus to throw the stone that would be the signal of 
combat between the armed men sprung from the dragon's teeth. 



CHAPTER yi. 



CHAEAOTKR OF ABEAHAM LINCOLN IN HISTOET. — ABSTTRD PANEGYEIO. — THE PERSONAL AND 
POLITICAL LIFE OF THE NEW PRESIDENT. — HIS JOURNEY TO WASHINGTON. — HIS SPEECH 
AT PHILADELPHIA. — THE FLIGHT FROM HAERISBURG. — ALARM IN WASHINGTON. — MILI- 
TARY DISPLAY IN THE CAPITAL. — CEREMONY OF INAUGURATION. — CRITICISM OF LINCOLN'S 
ADDRESS. — WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY THOUGHT OF IT. — SERIOUS PAUSE AT WASH- 
INGTON. — STATEMENT OF HORACE GREELEY. — ^HOW THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS WAS RE- 
CEIVED IN THE SECEDED STATES. — VISIT OF CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS TO WASHING- 
TON. — SEWARd's PLEDGE TO JUDGE CAMPBELL. — THE COMMISSIONERS DECEIVED. — MILI- 
TARY AND NAVAL EXPEDITIONS FROM NEW YORK. — CONSULTATION OF THE CABINET ON 
THE SUMTER QUESTION. — CAPT. FOX's VISIT TO CHARLESTON. — HIS PROJECT. — OBJECTIONS 
OF GEN. SCOTT. — SINGULAR ARTICLE IN A NEW YORK JOURNAL. — LINCOLN'S HESITATION. 
— HIS FINAL DEVICE. — SEWARd's GAME WITH THE COMMISSIONERS. — ^THE REDUCTION 
OF FORT SUMTER. — DESCRIPTION OF THE CONFEDERATE WORKS FOR THE REDUCTION 
OF SUMTER. — BEAUREGARD DEMANDS THE SURRENDER OF THE FORT. — THE BOMBARD- 
MENT. — THE FORT ON FIRE. — THE FEDERAL FLEET TAKES NO PART IN THE FIGHT. — THE 
SURRENDER. — GREAT EXCITEMENT IN THE NORTH. — ITS TRUE MEANING. — THE CRUSADE 
AGAINST THE SOUTH. — DR. TYNG's EXHORTATION. — CONDUCT OF NORTHERN DEMOCRATS. 
— DICKINSON, EVEEETT, AND COCHRANE. — PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S PROCLAMATION. — HIS 
PACIFIC PROTESTS TO THE VIRGINIA COJIMISSIONERS. — SECESSION OF VIRGINIA. — DIS- 
CONTENT IN THE WESTERN COUNTIES. — SECOND SECESSIONARY MOVEMENT OF THE SOUTH- 
ERN STATES. — VIOLENT ACTS OF THE WASHINGTON ADMINISTRATION. — PREPARATIONS OF 
THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT FOR WAR. — RUSH OF VOLUNTEERS TO ARMS. — PRESIDENT 
DAVIs' ESTIMATE OF THE MILITARY NECESSITY. — REMOVAL OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT 
TO RICHMOND. — ACTIVITY OF VIRGINIA. — ROBERT E. LEE. — HIS ATTACHMENT TO THE 
UNION. — WHY HE JOINED THE CONFEDERATE CAUSE. — HIS SPEECH IN THE STATE HOUSE AT 
RICHMOND. — HIS ORGANIZATION OF THE MILITARY FORCE OF VIRGINIA. — MILITARY COUN- 
CIL IN RICHMOND. — THE EARLY REPUTATION OF LEE. 

A LARGE portion of the Northern people have a custom of apotheosis , 
at least so far as to designate certain of their public men, to question 
whose reputation is considered bold assumption, if not sacrilegious daring. 
But the maxim of de moriuis nil nisi honum does not apply to history. 
The character of Abraham Lincoln belongs to history as fully as that of 
the meanest agent in human ajBFairs ; and his own declaration, on one occa 



MK. Lincoln's antecedents. 101 

sion, that he did not expect to " escape " it is sure to be verified, now oi 
hereafter. 

We have abeady stated that Mr. Lincoln was not elected President of 
the United States for any commanding fame, or for any known merit as a 
statesman. His panegyrists, although they could not assert for him a 
guiding intellect or profound scholarship, claimed for him some homely 
and substantial virtues. It was said that he was transparently honest. 
But his honesty was rather that facile disposition that readily took impres- 
sions from whatever ^v^as urged on it. It was said that he was excessively 
amiable. But his amiability was animal. It is small merit to have a 
Falstaffian humour in one's blood. Abraham Lincoln was neither kind 
nor cruel, in the proper sense of these words, simply because he was desti- 
tute of the higher order of sensibilities. 

His appearance corresponded to his rough life and uncultivated mind. 
His figure was tall and gaunt-looking ; his shoulders were inclined for- 
ward ; his anus of unusual length ; and his gait astride, rapid and shuf- 
fling. The savage wits in the Southern newspapers had no other name for 
him than " the Illinois Ape." 

The new President of the United States was the product of that parti- 
zanship which often discovers its most " available " candidates among 
obscure men, with slight political records, and of that infamous dema- 
gogueism in America that is pleased with the low and vulgar antecedents 
of its public men, and enjoys the imagination of similar elevation for each 
one of its own class in society. Mr. Lincoln had formerly served, without 
distinction, in Congress. But among his titles to American popularity 
were the circumstances that in earlier life he had rowed a flat-boat down 
the Mississippi ; afterwards been a miller ; and at another period had 
earned his living by splitting rails in a county of Illinois. When he was 
first named for the Presidency, an enthusiastic admirer had presented to 
the State Convention of Illinois two old fence-rails, gaily decorated with 
flags and ribbons, and bearing the following inscription : " Abraham Lin- 
coln, the Rail Candidate for President in 1860. — Two rails from a lot of 
3,000, made in 1830, by Thos. Hanks and Abe Lincoln." The incident is 
not mentioned for amusement : it is a suggestive illustration of the vulgar 
and silly devices in an American election. 

Since the announcement of his election, Mr, Lincoln had remained very 
retired and studiously silent in his home at Springfield, Illinois. Expecta- 
tions were raised by the mystery of this silence ; his panegyrists declared 
that it was the indication of a thoughtful wisdom pondering the grave con- 
ceras of the country, and likely to announce at last some novel and pro- 
found solution of existing difiiculties ; and so credulous are all men in a 
time of anxiety and embarrassment, and so eager to catch at hopes, that 
these fulsome prophecies of the result of Mr. Lincoln's meditations actu- 



102 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ally impressed the country, which awaited with impatience the opening of 
the oracle's lips. 

ISTever was a disapi^ointment so ludicrous. JSTo sooner did Mr. Lincoln 
leave his home on his official journey to Washington, than he became pro- 
fuse of speech, entertaining the crowd, that at different points of the rail- 
road watched his progress to the capital, with a peculiar style of stump 
oratory, in which his "Western phraseology, jests, and comic displays 
amused the whole country in the midst of a great public anxiety. He was 
reported to have been for months nursing a masterly wisdom at Spring- 
field ; he was approaching the capital on an occasion and in circumstances 
the most imposing in American history ; and yet he had no better coun- 
sels to offer to the distressed country than to recommend his hearers to 
" keep cool," and to assure them in his peculiar rhetoric and grammar 
that " nobody was hurt," and that there was " nothing going wrong," 
The new President brought with him the buffoonery and habits of a dema- 
gogue of the back-woods. He amused a crowd by calling up to the 
speaker's stand a woman, who had recommended him to grow whiskers on 
his face, and kissing her in public ; he measured heights with the tall men 
he encountered in his public receptions ; and, as j)art of the ceremony of 
the inauguration at Washington, he insisted upon kissing the thirty-four 
young women who, in striped colours and spangled dresses, represented in 
the procession the thirty-four States of the Union. These incidents are 
not improperly recorded : they are not trivial in connection with a histor- 
ical name, and with reference to an occasion the most important in Amer- 
ican annais. 

At Philadelphia, where Mr. Lincoln was required to assist in raising a 
United States flag over Independence Hall, he was more serious in his 
speech than on any former occasion in his journey. In his address was 
this language : " that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which 
gave Liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the 
world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that, in due 
time, the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men." These 
words were supposed to be aimed at the institution of negro slavery in the 
South. With reference to them a Baltimore newspaper said : " Mr. Lin- 
coln, the President elect of the United States, will ai-rive in this city, with 
his suite, this afternoon by special train from Harrisburg, and will proceed, 
we learn, directly to Washington, It is to be hoped that no opportunity 
will be afforded him — or that, if it be afforded, he will not embrace it — to 
repeat iu our midst the sentiments which he is reported to have expressed 
yesterday in Philadelphia," This newspaper paragraph and some other 
circumstances equally trivial were made the occasion of an alarm that the 
new President was to be assassinated in Baltimore, or on his way to that 
city. The alarm was communicated to Mr. Lincoln himself. He was in 



HIS INAUGURATION TROUBLES. 103 

bed at the time in Ilarrisbiirg. He at once determined to leave by a spe- 
cial train direct to Washington. Not satisfied with thus avoiding Balti- 
more, his alarm took the most unusual precautions. Tlie telegraph wires 
were put beyond the reach of any one who might desire to use them. His 
departure was kept a profound secret. His person was disguised in a very 
long military cloak ; a Scotch plaid cap was put on his head ; and thus 
curiously attired, the President of the United States made his advent to 
Washington. " Had he," said the Baltimore Sun, " entered Willard's 
Hotel with a ' head-spring ' and a ' summersault ' and the clown's merry 
greeting to Gen. Scott, ' Here we are,' the country could not have been 
more surprised at the exhibition." * 

Mr. Lincoln's nervous alarm for his personal safety did not subside 
with his arrival in Washington. General Scott, who was in military 
command there, had already collected in the capital more than six hun- 
dred regular troops, and had called out the District militia, to resist an 
attempt which would be made by an armed force to prevent the inaugura- 
tion of President Lincoln and to seize the public property. He insisted 
upon this imagination ; he pretended violent alarm ; he had evidently 
made up his mind for a military drama, and the display of himself on the 
occasion of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. His vanity was foolish. A com- 
mittee of the House of Hepresentatives investigated the causes of alarm, 
heard the General himself, and decided that his apprehensions were un- 
founded. But he M'Ould not be quieted. He communicated his fears to 
Mr. Lincoln to such effect, that for some time before and after his inaugu- 
ration soldiers were placed at his gate, and the grand reception-room of the 
White House was converted into quarters for troops from Kansas, who, 
under the command of the notorious Jim Lane, had volunteered to guard 
the chamber of the President. 

Inauguration-day passed peacefully and quietly, but was attended by 
an extraordinary military display. Troops were stationed in different 
parts of the city ; sentinels were posted on the tops of the highest houses 
and other eminences ; the President moved to the Capitol in a hollow 
square of cavalry ; and from the East portico delivered his inaugural 
address with a row of bayonets standing between him and his audience. 

The address was such an attempt at ambidexterity as might be ex- 
pected from an embarrassed and ill-educated man. It was a singular mix- 
ture. The new President said he was strongly in favour of the mainteu- 

* The silly or jocose story of the intended assassination was, that a party of Secessionists had 
plotted to throw the train of cars on which Mr. Lincoln was expected to travel to Baltimore, down a 
Bteep embankment, and this project failing, to murder him in the streets of Baltimore. But Mr. 
Lincoln left his wife and children to take the threatened route to Baltimore, and to risk the reported 
conspiracy to throw the cars from the track ; and it turned out that they arrived safe at their joup 
ney's end, and without accident of any sort. 



104 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ance of the Union and was opj^osed to Secession ; but he was equally 
against the principle of coercion, provided the rights of the United States 
government were not interfered with. He gave a qimsi pledge not to 
appoint Federal officers for communities unanimously hostile to the author- 
ity of the Union ; he appeared to proceed on the supposition that the 
Soutli had only to be disabused of her impressions and apprehensions of 
Northern liostility ; in one breath he exclaimed : " we are not enemies but 
friends ; " in another he made the following significant declaration : 

" The power confided to me will ie xisecl to hold., ocmipy, and possess the p)i'operty and 
places lelonging to the Government^ and collect the duties and imposts ; but, beyond what 
may be necessxary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or 
among the people anywhere." 

The address was variously received, according to the political opinions 
of the country, and made decided friends in no quarter. Mr. Lincoln's 
own party was displeased with it ; and the Republican newspapers de- 
clared that its tone was deprecatory and even apologetic. The Northern 
Democrats had no violent disapproval to express. The Border Slave 
States, which yet remained in the Union, were undetermined as to its mean- 
ing, but regarded it with suspicion. In fact it was with reference to these 
that Mr. Lincoln was embarrassed, if he was not actually at this time 
balancing between peace and war. If coercion was attempted towards the 
seceded States, the Border Slave States would go out of the Union, and 
the country would be lost. If a pacific policy was adopted, the Chicago 
platform would go to pieces, and the Black Kepublican party would be 
broken into fragments. 

There is reason to believe that for some weeks after Mr. Lincoln's 
inauguration there was a serious pause in his mind on the question of 
peace or war. His new Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, at the ISTew Eng- 
land Dinner in New York, had confidently predicted a settlement of all 
tiie troubles " within sixty days " — a phrase, by the way, that was to be 
frequently repeated in the course of four long years. Mr. Horace Greeley 
testifies that on visiting "Washington some two weeks or more after Mr. 
Lincoln's inauguration, he was " surprised to see and hear on every hand 
what were to him convincing proofs that an early collision with the ' Con- 
federates ' w^as not seriously apprehended in the highest quarters." If 
there was really an interval of indecision in the first days of Mr. Lincoln's 
administration, it was rapidly overcome by partisan influences, for his 
apparent vacillation was producing disaffection in the Black Republican 
party, and the clamour of their disappointment was plainly heard in 
Washington. 

In the seceded States the inaugural address had been interpreted as a 
menace of war. This interpretation was confirmed by other circumstances 



THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS. 105 

than tlie text of Mr. Lincoln's sjjeecb. In every department of the public 
service there had been placed by the new President violent abolitionists 
and men whose hatred of the South was notorious and unrelenting. The 
Pennsylvanian, a newspaper published in Philadelphia, said : " Mr. Lin- 
coln stands to-day where he stood on the 6th of November last, on the 
Chicago Platform. lie has not receded a single hair's breadth. He has 
opjjointed a Cabinet in which there is no slaveholder — a thing that has 
never Ijefore hapjyened since the formation of the Government^ and in 
which there are but two nominally Southern men, and both bitter Black 
Republicans of the radical dye. Let the Border States ignominiously suh- 
mit to the Abolition rule of this Lincoln Administration, if they like ; but 
dovut let the m^iserahle submissionists jpretend to he deceived. Make any 
base or cowardly excuse but this." 

But whatever may have been the just apprehensions of the Confederate 
Government at Montgomery, it exhibited no violent or tumultuous spirit, 
and made the most sedulous efibrts to resist the consequence of war. 
There can be no doubt of the sincerity and zeal of its efforts to effect a 
peaceable secession, and to avoid a war which it officially deplored as " a 
policy detrimental to the civilized world." 

As early as February, prior even to the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, 
the Confederate Congress had passed a resolution expressive of their 
desire for the appointment of commissioners to be sent to the Government 
of the United States, " for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations 
between that government and the Confederate States of America, and for 
the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two govern- 
ments upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith." 

In pursuance of this resolution, and in furtherance of his ovm. views, 
Mr. Davis deimted an embassy of commissioners to "Washington, author- 
ized to negotiate for the removal of the Federal garrisons from Forts 
Pickens and Sumter, and to provide for the settlement of all claims of 
public property arising out of the separation of the States from the Union. 
Two of the commissioners, Martin Crawford of Georgia, and John For- 
sythe of Alabama, attended in "Washington, arriving there on the 5tli of 
March. They gave only an informal notice of their arrival, with a view to 
afford time to the President, who had just been inaugurated, for the dis- 
charge of other pressing official duties in the organization of his adminis- 
tration, before engaging his attention in the object of their mission. On 
the 12th of March, they addressed an official communication to Mr. Seward, 
Secretary of State, explaining the functions of tlie embassy and its 
purposes. 

Mr. Seward declined to make any official recognition of the commis- 
sioners, but very readily consented, for purposes which the sequel demon 
Btrated, to hold verbal conferences with them, through the friendly inter 



106 



THE LOST CAUSE. 



mediation of Judge Campbell of Alabama. Through this gentleman, the 
commissioners, who had consented to waive all questions of form, received 
constant assurances from the Government of the United States of peaceftil 
intentions, of the determination to evacuate Fort Sumter ; and further that 
no measures, changing the existing status, prejudicially to the Confederate 
States, esj)eciallj at Fort Pickens, were in contemplation ; but that, in the 
event of any change of intention on the subject, notice would be given to 
the commissioners. 

It was conlidentially explained to the commissioners that to treat with 
them at that particular juncture might seriously embarrass the administra- 
tion of Mr. Lincoln with popular opinion in the North ; and they w^ere 
recommended to patience and urged to confidence by assurances which 
keener diplomatists than these ill-chosen representatives of the Confed- 
eracy might have had reason to doubt. 

But, at last, at the opportune time, this game with the commissioners 
was to be terminated. Dull and credulous as they were, their attention 
was, at last, attracted to the extraordinary preparations for an extensive 
military and naval exj)edition in New York, and other Northern ports. 
These preparations, commenced in secresy, for an expedition whose desti- 
nation was concealed, only became known when nearly completed, and 
on the 5th, 6th, and 7th April transports and vessels of war, with troops, 
munitions, and military supplies, sailed from Northern ports bound south- 
wards. Alarmed by so extraordinary a demonstration, the commissioners 
requested the delivery of an answer to their official communication of the 
]2th March, and thereupon received, on the 8th April, a reply dated on 
the 15th of the previous month, from which it appeared that during the 
whole interval, whilst the commissioners were receiving assurances calcu- 
lated to inspire hope of the success of their mission, f e Secretary of State 
and the President of the United States had already determined to hold no 
intercourse with them whatever ; to refuse even to listen to any proposals 
they had to make, and had profited by the delay created by their own 
assurances, in order to prejaare secretly the means for effective hostile 
operations. 

Of this remarkable deception, and the disreputable method by which 
it had been obtained. President Davis justly and severely remarked, in a 
message to the Confederate Congress : " The crooked paths of diplomacy 
can scarcely furnish an example so wanting in courtesy, in candour, and 
directness, as was the course of the United States Government towards our 
commissioners in Washington." 

While the Confederate commissioners were thus being hoodwinked and 
betrayed, the reinforcement of Sumter was the subject of constant Cabinet 
consultation at Washington, held in profound secresy from the public, and 
surrounded by an air of mystery that gave occasion for the most various 



DECEPTION AT WASHINGTON. 107 

rumours. Gen. Scott had advised the President that, in his military 
judgment, it had become impracticable to reinforce Fort Sumter, on 
account of the number of batteries erected by the Confederates at the 
mouth of the harbour ; that an entrance from the sea was impossible. 
But Mr. Lincoln, and especially one member of his Cabinet, Mr. Blair, 
were firm in their refusal to evacuate the fort. It now became the concern 
of the government to avoid the difficulty of military reinforcements by 
some artifice that would equally well answer its purposes. That artifice 
was the subject of secret and sedulous consultation, that extended through 
several weeks. 

About the last of March, Capt. Fox, of the Federal I^avy, was sent to 
Charleston by the government, and stated that his object was entirely 
pacific. He was, by a strange credulity, allowed to visit the fort and to 
communicate with Major Anderson. His real object was to carry con- 
cealed despatches to Major Anderson, and to collect information with 
reference to a plan for the reinforcement of the garrison. On his return 
to "Washington he was called frequently before President Lincoln and his 
Cabinet to explain his plan for reinforcing the fort, and to answer the 
objections presented by Gen. Scott and the military authorities. The 
project involved passing batteries with steamers or boats at night at right 
angles to the Confederate line of fire, and thirteen hundred yards distant 
— a feat which Capt. Fox argued M'as entirely practicable, and that many 
safe examples of it had been furnished by the Crimean War. 

In this conflict of counsels the Washington administration hesitated. 
Mr. Lincoln, at one time, although with bitter reluctance, agreed that the 
fort should be evacuated, if the responsibility of the act could be thrown 
on the preceding administration of Mr. Buchanan. A leading article for 
a New York paper had been prepared, the proof-sheet of which was sub- 
mitted to Mr. Lincoln and approved. In this, the ground was taken that 
the evacuation was an absolute military necessity, brought about by 
treason on the part of Mr. Buchanan, who, it was insisted, might have 
reinforced and supplied the garrison, but not only failed to do so, but 
purposely left it in such condition as to force his successor in office to 
encounter the ignominy of yielding it up to tiie Southerners. This same 
article lauded Mr. Lincoln's pacific policy, saying : " Had war — not peace 
— been his object, — had he desired to raise throughout the mighty North 
a feeling of indignation which in ninety days would have eraancijpated 
every slave on the continent^ and driven their masters into the sea — if need 
be, he had only to have said — " Let the garrison of Fort Sumter do their 
"duty, and perish l>eneath its walls: and on the heads of the traitours and 
rebels and slavery propagandists be the consequences." 

And yet the horrible alternative depicted here and indicated as the 
means of rousing the North to a war of extermination upon slavery and 



108 THE LOST CAUSE. 

slave-owners, was eventually and deliberately adopted by Mr. Lincoln. 
The point with the government was to devise some artifice for the relief 
of Fort Sumter, short of oj^en military reinforcements, decided to be im- 
practicable, and which would have the efiect of inaugurating the war by 
a safe indirection and under a plausible and convenient pretence. The 
device was at last conceived. On the afternoon of the 4th of April, Presi- 
dent Lincoln sent for Capt. Fox, and said he had decided to let the expe- 
dition go, but he would send a messenger from himself to the authorities 
at Charleston, declaring that the purpose of the expedition was only to 
jyromsion the fort, peaceably or forcibly, as they might decide for 
themselves. 

Meanwhile the dalliance with the Confederate commissioners — the 
part of the artifice allotted to Secretary Seward — was kept up to the last 
moment. At one time Mr. Seward had declared to Judge Campbell, who 
was acting as an intermediary between the Secretary and the commis- 
sioners, that before a letter, the draft of which Judge Campbell held in his 
hand, could reach President Davis at Montgomery, Fort Sumter would 
have been evacuated. Five days passed, and instead of evacuating. Major 
Anderson was busy in strengthening Sumter ! A telegram from Gen, 
Beauregard informed the commissioners of this. Again Judge Campbell 
saw Mr. Seward, and again, in the presence of a third party, received from 
him assurances that the fort was to be evacuated, and was authorized by 
him to state to the commissioners, that " the government will not under- 
take to supply Fort Sumter, without giving notice to Governor Pickens." 
This was on the 1st of April. On the 7th, Judge Campbell again ad- 
dressed Mr. Seward a letter, alluding to the anxiety and alarm excited by 
the great naval and military preparations of the government, and asking 
whether the peaceful assurances he had given were well or ill founded. 
Mr. Seward's reply was laconic : " Faith as to Sumter fully kept : wait 
and see ! " On the very day that Mr. Seward uttered these words, the 
van of the Federal fleet, with a heavy force of soldiers, had sailed for the 
Southern coast ! 



THE KEDUCTION OF FOKT SUMTER. 

On the 3d of March President Davis had commissioned P. G. T. Beau- 
regard, then Colonel of Engineers in the Confederate service. Brigadier- 
general, with official directions to proceed to Charleston, and assume 
command of all the troops in actual service in and around that place. On 
aiTiving there he immediately examined the fortifications, and undertook 
the construction of additional works for the reduction of Fort Sumter, and 
the defence of the entrances to the harbour. 



THE FERST GUN. 109 

On three sides, formidable batteries of cannon and mortars bore upon 
the Fort. On the south, at a distance of about twelve hundred yards, was 
Cumming's Point on Morris' Island, where three batteries had been com- 
pleted, mounting six guns and six mortars. Farthest off of these, was the 
Trapier batter}'', built very strongly with heavy beams and sand-bags, and 
containing three eight-inch mortars ; next the " iron battery,'' covered 
over with railroad bars, and having thick iron plates to close the em- 
brasures after the guns were fired. Nearest to Sumter was the " Point 
battery," a very large and strong work, containing three ton-inch mortars, 
two forty-two j)ounders and a rifled cannon. From these works, a long 
line of batteries stretched down the sea side of Morris' Island, commanding 
the ship channel, and threatening a terrible ordeal to the Federal vessels, 
should they attempt to enter. Nearly west of Sumter, on James' Island, 
■was Fort Johnson, Avhere a strong battery of mortars and cannon was 
erected. On the northeast was Fort Moultrie, ready with Columbiads, 
Dahlgren guns, mortars, and furnaces for red-hot shot. In the cove near 
the western end of Sullivan's Island, was anchored a floating battery, 
constructed of the peculiarly fibrous j^almetto timber, sheathed with plate 
iron, and mounting four guns of heavy calibre. 

On the 8th day of April a message was conveyed to Gov. Pickens of 
South Carolina, by Lieut. Talbot, an authorized agent of the Federal Gov- 
ernment. It was as follows : 

" I am directed by the President of the United States, to notify you to expect an 
attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only, and that if such at- 
tempt be not resisted, no eftbrt to throw in men, arms, or ammunition will bo made, 
without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the fort." 

The long suspense was over ; the Federal fleet was approaching the 
coast. The message was telegraphed by Gen. Beauregard to Montgomery, 
and the instructions of his Government asked. Mr. Walker, the Confed- 
erate Secretary of "War, replied, that if there was no doubt as to the au- 
thorized character of the messenger, Beauregard should at once demand 
the evacuation of Sumter, and if refused, should proceed to reduce it. 
The demand was made at two o'clock of the lltli April. Major Ander- 
son replied : " I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your com- 
munication demanding the evacuatio*n of this Fort, and to say in reply 
thereto, that it is a demand with which I regret that my sense of honour 
and of my obligation to my Government prevent my compliance." 
Nothing was left but to accept the distinct challenge of the Federal Gov- 
ernment to arms. A little past three o'clock in the miorning of April 
12th, Gen. Beauregard communicated by his aides with Major Anderson, 
notifying him that " he would open the fire of his batteries on Fort 
Sumter in one hour from that time." 



110 THE LOST CAUSE. 

At 4.30 A. M., the signal shell was fired from Fort Johnson. The fire 
from Fort Johnson was quickly followed by that of Moultrie, Cumming'a 
Point, and the floating battery. The incessant flash of the ordnance 
made a circle of flame, and the bursting of bombs over and in Fort 
Sumter became more and more constant as the proper range was obtained 
by the artillerists. 

Fort Sumter did not reply until seven o'clock. About that hour, it 
poured a well-directed stream of balls and shell against Moultrie, the float- 
ing battery, and the work on Cumming's Point. The fire continued 
throughout the day. Towards evening it became evident that that of 
the Confederates was very efi'ective. The enemy was driven from his 
barbette gmis ; several of them were disabled ; the parapet walls had 
crumbled away ; deep chasms had opened below ; the embrasures of the 
casemates had been so shattered as no longer to present a regular outline ; 
the chimneys and roofs of the houses were in ruins. 

"While this bombardment was going on, a portion of the Federal fleet 
had reached the rendezvous ofi" Charleston. It attempted to take no part 
in the fight. The only explanation of this extraordinary conduct of the 
naval expedition is found in a curious account from the pen of Capt. Fox 
himself. He writes : " As we neared the land, heavy gans were heard, 
and the smoke and shells from the batteries which had just opened fire on 
Sumter were distinctly visible. I immediately stood out to inform Capt. 
Eowaii, of the Pawnee, but met him coming in. He hailed me and asked 
for a pilot, declaring his intention of standing into the harbour and sharing 
the fate of his brethren of the army. I went on board, and informed him 
that I would answer for it, that the Government did not expect any stick 
gallant sacrifice, having settled maturely upon the policy indicated in the 
instructions to Capt. Mercer and myself." 

Early in the morning of the 13th, all of the Confederate batteries re- 
opened upon Fort Sumter, which responded vigorously for a time, direct- 
ing its fire specially against Fort Moultrie. At eight o'clock A. M., smoke 
was seen issuing from the quarters of Fort Sumter ; upon this, the fire of 
the Confederate batteries was increased, as a matter of course, for the 
purpose of bringing the enemy to terms as speedily as possible, inasmuch 
as his flag was still floating defiantly above him. Fort Sumter continued 
to fire from time to time, but at long and irregular intervals, amid the 
dense smoke, flying shot, and bursting shells. The Confederate troops, 
carried away by their naturally generous impulses, mounted the diflerent 
batteries, and at every dischai-ge from the fort, cheered the garrison for its 
])luck and gallantry, and hooted the fleet lying inactive just outside 
the bar. 

A little past one o'clock a shot from Moultrie struck the flag-staff of 
Sumter, and brought down the ensign. At this time the condition of 



FALL OF FOKT SUMTER. Ill 

Bumter and its garrison, had become desperate ; the interioiir was a heap 
of rnins ; the parapet had been so shattered that few of its guns remained 
mounted ; the smoke was packed in the casemates so as to render it im- 
possible for the men to work the guns ; the number of the garrison was 
too small to relieve each other ; incessant watching and laboui' had 
exhausted theh' strength. The conflagration, from the large volume of 
smoke, being apparently on the increase, Gen. Beauregard sent three of his 
aides with a message to Major Anderson, to the eflect that seeing liis flag 
no longer flying, his quarters in flames, and supposing him to be in dis- 
tress, he desired to ofl'er him any assistance he might stand in need of. 
Before his aides reached the fort, the Federal flag was displayed on the 
parapets, but remained there only a short time, when it was hauled down, 
and a M'hite flag substituted in its place. 

The fort had surrendered. The event was instantly announced in every 
part of Charleston by the ringing of bells, the pealing of camion, the 
shouts of couriers dashing through the streets, and by every indication of 
general rejoicing. " As an honourable testimony to the gallantry and forti- 
tude with which Major Anderson and his command had defended their 
posts," Gen. Beauregard not only agreed that they might take passage at 
their convenience for ]^ew York, but allowed him, on leaving the fort, to 
salute his flag with fifty guns. In firing the salute, a caisson exploded, 
which resulted in mortal injuries to four of the garrison. This was the 
only loss of life in the whole aff'air. It appeared indeed that a Divine 
control had made this combat bloodless ; and that so wonderful an 
exemption might have invited both sections of America to thoughts of 
gratitude and peace.^'" 

But it was not to be so. The fire of the war first drawn at Sumter 
produced an instant and universal excitement in the I^Torth. It convinced 
the people of that section that there was no longer any prospect of recov- 
ering the Southern States by the cheap policy of double and paltering 
Bpeeches. From the madness of their conviction, that they could no 
longer hope to accomplish their purposes by peaceful deceits and amuse- 
ments of compromise, there was a sudden and quick current of public senti- 
ment in the ISTorth towards the policy of coercion, with the most instant 
exertions to efl"ect it. 

The battle of Sumter had been brought on by the Washington Govern- 

• The North has been famous for cheap heroes in this war. Major Anderson was one of the 
earliest. When he arrived in the North from Sumter, he was greatly lionized, and travelled around 
the country feasting and speech-making. He was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and 
appointed to command the forces then gathering in Kentucky for the Western campaign. But he 
unexpectedly resigned ; probably because he was unwilling to put in jeopardy his easily acquired 
■seputalion, or perhaps because, as he had once despatched from Sumter to Washington, " his heart 
was not in the war." 



112 THE LOST CA.TJSE. 

ment by a trick too dishonest and shallow to account for the immense dis- 
play of sentiment in the North that ensued. The event afforded indeed 
to many politicians in the l!*[orth a most flimsy and false excuse for loosing 
passions of hate against the South that had all along been festering in the 
concealment of their hearts. That action suddenly convinced them that 
the South was really resolved to separate ; it disconcerted their hopes and 
plans of seducing her back into the Union by false and temporizing 
speeches ; it uttei-ly disappointed the Northern expectation that the 
South was not really in earnest, and that " all would come out right " by 
a little hypocrisy and aflfectation on the Northern side ; it snapped as a 
rotten net their vile and cheap schemes of getting the South back into the 
Union by art and deceit ; and men, finding no longer any purpose for con- 
cealment, threw aside their former professions, quickly determined to 
coerce what they could not cozon. This was the whole explanation of the 
Northern " reaction " at the occurrence at Sumter. 

There now ensued in the North a sort of crusade against the South, 
the passion, the fury, and blasphemy of which it is almost impossible to 
describe. The holiness of this crusade was preached, alike, from the hust- 
ings and the pulpit. Dr. Tyng, a celebrated minister of New York, 
assembled certain " roughs " and marauders of that city, known as " Billy 
Wilson's men," presented them Bibles, and declared that in carrying fire 
and sword into the rebellious States, they were propitiating Heaven, and 
would go far to assure the salvation of their souls.* In most of the 



* As an evidence of the contrast of spirit between the Christian churches, North and South, 
with reference to the war, we may place in juxtaposition here certain remarkable cotemporary ex- 
pressions of sentiment emanating from two of the most conspicuous Episcopal divines of the coun- 
try — Bishop Meade of Virgim'a, and Doctor Tyng of New York. 

The report of the first venerable Diocesan to the Episcopal Convention of Virginia, on the eve 
of the war, was replete with Christian sentiment befitting the occasion. He wrote : " / have clung 
with tenadty to the hope of preserving the Union to the last moment. If I know my own heart, could 
the sacrifice of the poor remnant of my life have contributed in any degree to its maintenance, such 
sacrifice would have been cheerfully made. But the developments of pubHc feeling and the course 
of our rulers have brought me, sloiuhj^ reluctantly, sorrowfully, yet most decidedly, to the painful 
conviction that notwithstanding attendant dangers and evils, we shall consult the welfare and happi- 
ness of the whole land by separation. And who can desire to retain a Union which has now become 
Bo hateful, and by the application of armed force, wliich, if successful, would make it tenfold more 
hateful, and soon lead to the repetition of the same bloody contests ? 

" In connection with this civil and geographical separation in our country, and almost necessarily 
resulting from it, subjects of some change of the ecclesiastical relations of our Diocese must come 
under consideration. There is a general and strong desire, I believe, to retain as much as possible 
of our past and present happy intercourse with those from whom we shall be in other matters more 
divided. A meeting is already proposed for this purpose in one of the seceded States, whose plans, 
BO far as developed, I will submit to the consideration of this body at its present session. 

" I cannot conclude without expressing the earnest desire that the ministers and members of onr 
Church, atid all the citizens of our State, who are so deeply interested in the present contest, may con- 
duct it in the most elevated and Christian spirit, rising above unworthy and uncharitable impuiaiiont 



I 



FANATICISM OF THE NOBTH. 113 

Northern cities men were forced to wear badges of " loyalty," and every 
house required to hang out the Federal flag as a signal of patriotism, and 
an evidence of their support of the war. This peculiarly Yankee exhibi- 
tion in flags pervaded nearly every square mile of country, and was car- 
ried even into the sanctuary. Pulpits were dressed with the Stars and 
Stripes ; Sunday-school children wore the colours of the Federal ensign ; 
the streets were rubicund with the bunting ; and even in distant parts of 
the country flags floated from gate-posts and tops of trees, as evidences of 
" loyal " sentiments and marks for protection against " vigilance com- 
mittees." This singular exliibition of " Union " sentiment was not a mere 
picturesque afi'air ; it was attended with fearful riots and violence, and the 
man who refused to display a piece of bunting was treated as a criminal 
and outlaw, pursued by mobs, and threatened with death. 

Into this crusade against the South all parties and sects and races were 
strangely mingled. Old contentions and present animosities were forgot- 
ten ; Democrats associated with recreants and fanatics in one grand league, 
for one grand purpose ; foreigners from Europe were induced into the 
belief that they were called upon to fight for the " liberty " for which they 
had crossed the ocean, or for the " free homesteads " which were to be the 
rewards of the war ; and all conceivable and reckless artifices were re 
sorted to to swell the tide of numbers against the South. 

But what was most remarkable in this display of popular fury was its 



on all who are opposed. Many there are equally sincere, on both sides, as there ever have been Le 
all the wars and controversies that have "jeen waged upon earth ; though it does not follow that all 
have the same grounds of justice and truth on which to base their warfare. 

" Let me, in conclusion, commend to the special prayers all those who have now devoted then*- 
selves to the defence of our State. From personal knowledge of many of them, and from the infor- 
mation of others, there is already, I believe, a large portion of religious principle and genuine ■piety 
to be found among them. I rejoice to learn that in many companies not only are the services of 
chaplains and other ministers earnestly sought for and after, but social prayer -meetings held among 
themselves. Our own Church has a very large proportion of communicants among the officers of 
our army, and not a few among the soldiers. Let us pray that grace may be given them to be faith- 
ful soldiers of the Cross, as well as valiant and successful defenders of the State." 

About the same time, Dr. Tyng addressed a public meeting in New York, with reference to the 
war. He said he would not descend to call it civil warfare. He would not meet pirates upon the 
dock, and call it warfare. He would hang them as quick as he would shoot a mad dog. [Cheers.] 

There was one road to peace, and that was absolute and entire subjection. [Cheers.] He did 
not mean the subjection of the South, but of the riotous mob which there had control of affairs. 
The sword of justice was the only pen that could write the final treaty. Keferring to the troops that 
had been raised, the speaker asked who ever saw such an army as has been gathered in our land ? 
He would not except the rare birds of Billy Wilson's Regiment. JHe might venture to say of them 
that tlieir salvation might be in the very consecration they have made of themselves to their country. 
[Cheers.] Twenty-three thousand Bibles had been given to the troops who go to fight for thcij 
eoimtry ; did anybody believe there were five hundred copies in the army of renegades who art 
meetxQg them in the contest ? It would scald and singe their polluted hands. We had every caus" 
to be proud of our army. They are worthy of the Bible. How their names will glisten in glory ! 
8 



114 ^ THE LOST CAUSE. 

sudden and complete absorption of the entire Democratic party iu tlie 
North, which had so long professed regard for the rights of the Southern 
States, and even sympathy with the first movements of their secession. 
Thia party now actually rivalled the Abolitionists in their expressions of 
fury and revenge. They not only followed the tide of public opinion, but 
sought to ride on its crest. Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, who had 
enjoyed the reputation of a " Northern man with Southern principles," 
became the fiercest advocate of the war, and consigned his former friends 
in the South to fire and sword. Edward Everett of Massachusetts, who, 
a few months ago, had declared that the Southern States should be per- 
mitted to go out of the Union in peace, became an apostle of the war, and 
exhausted his famous rhetoric in preaching the new gospel of blood.* 
These men were types of their party. In the early stages of Secession, it 
had been said that such was the sympathy of New York with the move- 
ment, tliat the Southern States would be able to recruit several regiments 
for their military service. Now in that city a newspaper office was 
threatened with a mob, because it had dared to criticise the defence of 
Sumter ; and Democratic orators — among them a man named John 
Cochrane, who had made his reputation and modelled his manners by 
playing toady to Southern members in Congress — harangued the multi- 

* In a letter published iu the newspapers of the day, Mr. Everett wrote : 

" It was my opinion that, if they [the Cotton States] would abstain from further aggression, and 
were determined to separate, we had better part in peace. But the wanton attack on Fort Sumter 
(which took place not from any military necessity, for what harm was a single company cooped up 
in Charleston harbour, able to do to South CaroUna ? but for the avowed purpose of ' stirring the 
blood of the South, and thus bringing in the Border States), and the subsequent proceedings at 
Montgomery have wholly changed the state of affairs. The South has levied an unprovoked war 
against the Government of the United States, the mildest and most beneficent in the world, and has 
made it the duty of every good citizen to rally to its support." 

The excuse of the Sumter attack served other Democrats, beside Mr. Everett, as a convenient 
handle for hypocrisy and falseness. To be used as such, of course, it had to be put in a convenient 
fihapc of words. Mr. Everett speaks of it as " a wanton attack." How wanton on the part of the 
South — how even evitable on her part, when the Administration made the direct challenge, which 
the South had forewarned the Government at Washington that it would be constramed to accept ? 
This was a simple question ; but it presented the whole issue of the Sumter complication, and 
•«verely indicates where the responsibility for the collision lies. 

There is a wretched argument in Mr. Everett's statement above, which, wretched as it is, may 
be reversed against himself. He says that there was no " military necessity " for the possession of 
the fort by South Carolina, as it was able to do her no harm. Then, in what respect greater was 
the military necessity for the Government to retain it, if it was so powerless to control or to affect 
the seceded State ? 

It was no question of military necessity. The Government at Washington wanted the fort as an 
appanage of its sovereignty. So did South Carolina. And its pogsession by the latter was but the 
mcident of the separation, which Mr. Everett says he had recommended ! It was but the logical 
and legitimate conclusion of his own policy ! Why should he complain that South Carolina should 
be in possession — and even bloodless possession — of the fort, which very fact was but the essential 
and inevitable carrying out of his own early recommendation of her separate sovereignty ! 



DEFECTION OF THE DEMOCKACT. 115 

tude, advising tliem to " crush the rebellion," and, if need be, to drown 
the whole South in one indiscriminate sea of blood. 

This giving way of the Democratic party to the worst fanaticism of the 
North, proved beyond doubt that it was wholly unreliable, entirely un- 
trustworthy as the friend of the South, and, as Senator Brown of Missis 
eippi had designated it in the last Congress, hopelessly " rotten.'''' But it 
proved something more than this. It proved that remarkable want of 
virtue in American politics, common in a certain degree, to all parts of the 
country. It was another illustration of the fact which runs through the 
whole of the political history of America, that in every election where one 
party greatly preponderates, or in every decisive exhibition of a majority, 
the minority is absorbed and disappears ; principle is exchanged for expe- 
diency ; public opinion becomes the slave of the larger party ; and public 
men desert the standards of conviction to follow the dispensations of 
patronage, and serve the changes of the times. 

President Lincoln did not hesitate to take immediate advantage of the 
" reaction " in the North. Two days after the boodless battle of Sumter, 
he issued his proclamation to raise seventy-five thousand troops, usurping 
the power and discretion of Congress to declare war by a shallow, verbal 
pfetence of calling them out imder the act of 1795, which onl}^ contem- 
plated the raising of armed posses " in aid of the civil authorities." * 

Even in this conjuncture, the President still hesitated to unmask his 
real intentions of a war of subjugation, still embracing the hope of keeping 
the Border States " loyal " to his Government. On the very day of the 



* The following is a full copy of this important paper : 

" Whereas, the laws of the United States have been for some tune past, and now are, opposed, 
and the execution thereof ol)Structed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, 
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary 
course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law : now, therefore, 
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Con- 
stitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth the Militia of the several States of the Union to 
the aggregate number of 75,000, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be 
duly executed. 

" The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through 
the War Department. I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid, this effort to mam- 
tain the honour, the integrity, and existence, of our national Union, and the perpetuity of popular 
government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. I deem it proper to say that the 
first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places; 
and property which have been seized from the Union ; and in every event the utmost care will be 
observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or 
interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens of any part of the country ; and 
I hereby command the persons composmg the combinations aforesaid, to disperse and retire peace 
ably to their respective abodes, within twenty days from this date. 

" Deeming that the present condition of public aifiiirs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do 
hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, convene both houses of Congress. 
f. The Senators and Representatives are, therefore, summoned to assemble at their respective chamber! 



116 THE LOST CAUSE. 

attack on Sumter, he made the most pacific protests to the Yirginia 
Commissioners, who were then visiting him ; — the President then threat- 
ening no other retaliation for the capture of Sumter than the withdrawal 
of the mails from the seceded States, But Virginia was not to be easily 
deluded. Two days after the interview of her Commissioners with 
President Lincoln, her people were reading his call for a land force of 
seventy-five thousand men ; and almost instantly thereafter, the proud 
and tlirilling news was flashed over the South that Yirginia had redeemed 
the pledges she had given against coercion, and was no longer a memhei 
of the Federal Union, but in a new, heart-to-heart, defiant union with the 
Confederate States of the South. 

The ordinance of secession on the part of Virginia was met by signs of 
discontent in some thirty or forty counties in the western part of the 
State. But despite this distraction, her example was not without its influ- 
ence and fruit. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas followed the 
leadership of Virginia, in what may be called the second secessionary move- 
ment of the States — which, made as it was, in the immediate presence of 
war, and led by Virginia in the face of the most imposing, actual, and 
imminent dangers to herself, showed a com'age and devotion of a degree 
not permitted to be exhibited by the first movement of the Cotton States. 
History will not allow the real leadership of Virginia in the glory of the 
movement for freedom to be disputed by South Carolina. Where all are 
confessed brave, and where opportunities only have difi'ered for exhibi- 
tions of devotion, it is only in the historical spirit, and not in that of 
invidiousness, that the fact is claimed for Virginia of a supreme manifes- 
tation of devoted courage and leadership. 

The people of Virginia had not long to wait to see verified the inter- 
pretation that that State had given to Mr. Lincoln's policy, as one of 
coercion and subjugation of the South, and of unauthorized war upon its 
citizens. He increased his levies by repeated proclamations, until more 
than two hundred thousand men in the I^Torth were put under arms. He 
exchanged his former pretext for calling out troops to repossess the South- 
ern forts. He induced his new forces to believe that they were only 
intended for the defence of his capital. He did not hesitate, however, to 
occupy Maryland with troops, to increase the garrison and subsidiary 

at twelve o'clock, noon, on Thursday, the fourth day of July next, then and there to consider and 
determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the pubUc safety and interest may seem to demand. 

" In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to 
be aflSxed. 
•' Done at the City of Washington, this fifteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord, one 

thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the independence of the United States the 

eighty-fifth. 

" By the President, " ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" "William H. Seward, Secretary of Sttte." 



PEEPAKATION FOR WAE. 117 

forces at Fortress Monroe to more than twelve thousand men, and to 
establish systems of despotism in Maryland and Missouri, by the disarm 
ing of citizens, military arrests, the suspension of the habeas corjyus, and 
the striking down of the liberties of the people by a licentious soldiery. 

Before the fall of Sumter, the Confederate Government at Montgomery 
had perfected its organization, and was quietly awaiting events. There 
could be no doubt of the confidence of the people in its mission. It had 
called for a slight loan — only five millions of dollars ; but the proposals 
amounted to eight millions, and not one of them was below par. It had 
appointed three commissioners to England, France, Russia, and Belgium, 
instructed to ask the recognition of the Confederate States as a member 
of the family of nations. 

The guns of Sumter gave a new animation to the Government and 
produced an excitement in the South that in volume and efiect well 
responded to the fury of the North. President Davis, at once, Congress 
being out of session, called upon the States for volunteers for the public 
defence. He also published a proclamation inviting applications for priva- 
teering service, in which private armed vessels might aid the public de- 
fence on ihe high seas under letters of marque and reprisal granted by 
Congress. The popular reply to these measures was enthusiastic. In 
every portion of the country, there was exhibited the most patriotic devo- 
tion to the common cause. Transportation companies freely tendered the 
use of their lines for troops and supplies. The presidents of the railroads 
of the Confederacy assembled in convention, and not only reduced largely 
the rates heretofore demanded for mail service, and conveyance of troops 
and munitions, but voluntarily proflered to receive their compensation at 
these reduced rates in the bonds of the Confederacy, for the purpose of 
leaving all the resources of the Government at its disposal for the common 
defence. Requisitions for troops were met with such alacrity that the 
numbers tendering their services, in every instance, greatly exceeded the 
demand. On the 29th of April, President Davis wrote to the Confederate 
Congress then convoked by him : " There are now in the field at Charles- 
ton, Pensacola, Forts Morgan, Jackson, St. Philip and Pulaski, nineteen 
thousand men, and sixteen thousand are now en route for Yirginia. — It is 
proposed to organize and hold in readiness for instant action, in view of 
the present exigencies of the country, an army of one hundred thousand 
men." 

On the 20th day of May the seat of the Confederate Government was 
removed from Montgomery, Alabama, to PIchmond, Virginia. It was 
clear enough that this latter State was to be the grand theatre of the war 
on land. 

The first concern of Yirginia after secession was not to raise troops : 
these were abundant ; but to select a commander whose skill and name 



tl8 THE LOST CAUSE. 

miglit obtain universal confidence in the commonwealth, and Lc-fit the 
heroic and momentous occasion. Lieut.-Col. Robert E. Lee, a son of the 
fainons Harry Lee, of the Revolution, and descended from a family con- 
Bpicuons for two hundred years in Virginia, had resigned his commission 
m the United States Army, immediately on learning of the secession of 
his State. He had done so, protesting an attachment to the Union, but 
putting above that a sense of duty, that would never allow him to take 
part against his State, and " raise his hand against his relatives, his chil 
dren, his home." This sentiment of duty was expressed in very noble 
terms in the letter which tendered his resignation. The man who^ some 
years ago, had written in a private letter to his son at college, " Duty is 
the snblimest word in our language," was now in his own life to attest the 
sentiment, and give its example ; and when we find him in his farewell 
letter to Gen. Scott, referring to " the struggle it had cost him " to sep- 
arate himself from the Federal service, we are prepared for the touching 
and noble declaration of his wife : " My husband has wept tears of blood 
over this terrible war ; but he must, as a man of honour and a Yirginian, 
share the destiny of his State, which has solemnly pronounced for inde- 
pendence." 

Governor Letcher was not slow in nominating Lee Major-General in 
command of all the military forces in Yii'ginia. The nomination was 
unanimously confirmed by the Convention. Gen. Lee was conducted to the 
State House ; there was an imposing ceremony of reception ; the trust 
reposed in him was announced in a glowing speech from the Chair. In 
the excitement and elation of the occasion, his reply was singularly solemn 
and beautiful. He said : 

" Mr. President and gentlemen of the Convention : Profoundly im- 
pressed with the solemnity of the occasion, for which I must say I was not 
prepared, I accept the position assigned me by your partiality. I would 
have much preferred, had your choice fallen upon an abler man. Trusting 
in Almighty God, an approving conscience, and the aid of my fellow- 
citizens, I devote myself to the service of my native State, in whose behalf 
alone, will 1 ever again draw my sword." 

But a few days after the secession of Virginia, she was a great camp. 
It was popularly estimated that in the early summer there were within 
her borders forty-eight thousand men under arms. The valleys and hills 
swarmed with soldiers ; the rush to arms could scarcely be contained ; the 
alternative was not who should go to the war, but who should stay at 
home. Two merchants had fought in Richmond, because one had re- 
proached the other for being in his store, when nearly everybody in the 
city was following the drum, and companies were actually begging to be 
accepted into service. It is no wonder that Gen. Lee made a very unpopu- 
lar and just remark : that the volunteer spirit of the country should be in 



GENERAL LEE COMMA.NDEE-m-CHIEF. 119 

a measure cheeked and moderated, and that he threw cold water on a 
rabble who hurrahed him at a railroad station, by telling them they had 
better go home. 

Gen. Lee's fii'st task was to organize and equip the military forces that 
were from every direction flowing in upon his charge. The military coun- 
cil at the State House, Richmond, consisting of Governor Letcher, Lieut.- 
Gov. Montague, Lieut. M. F. Maury, of the Navy, Gen. Lee and others, 
was in almost constant session. The raw material promptly brought for- 
ward was to be effected for speedy service. The quartermaster and com- 
missary departments were to be organized, to enable the immediate con- 
centration of troops upon the borders of the State, wherever the move- 
ments of the enemy might demand the presence of troops. In fact, Gen. 
Lee had now all the duties of a minister of war to discharge, in addition to 
those more immediate of general-in-chief. And yet all these duties were 
executed with a rapidity and effect, and an easy precision of manner that 
may be said, at the outset of the war to have secured Lee's reputation as 
an unrivalled organizer of military forces, and thus early to have indicated 
one conspicuous branch of his great mind. 

On the 6th of May, Virginia was admitted into the Southern Confed- 
eracy ; and her forces then forming part of the entire Confederate Army, 
Lee's rank was reduced to that of Brigadier-General. In that position he 
was to remain for some time in comparative obscurity, while the more 
conspicuous names of Beauregard and others were to ride the wave of 
popular favour. 



CHAPTEK YIL 

IN WHAT SENSE VIEGINTA SECEDED FEOM THE TTNION. — A NEW INTERPRETATION OF THB 
WAR OF THE CONFEDERATES. — INFLUENCE OF TIRGINIA ON THE OTHER BOEDKB 
STATES. — REPLIES OF THESE STATES TO LINCOLN'S REQUISITION FOR TROOPS.— rSECES- 
SION OF TENNESSEE, ARKANSAS, AND NORTH CAROLINA. — SEIZURE OF FEDERAL FORTS 
IN NORTH CAROLINA. — MOVEMENTS IN TIRGINIA TO SECURE THE GOSPORT NAVY YARD 
AND harper's FERRY. — THEIR SUCCESS. — BURNING OF FEDERAL SHIPS. — ATTITUDE OF 
MARYLAND. — THE BALTIMORE RIOT. — CHASE OF MASSACHUSETTS SOLDIERS. — EXCITE- 
MENT IN BALTIMORE. — TIMID ACTION OF THE MARYLAND LEGISLATURE. — MILITARY 
DESPOTISM IN MARYLAND. — ARRESTS IN BALTIMORE. — A REIGN OF TERROUR. — LIGHT 
ESTIMATION OF THE WAR IN THE NORTH. — WHY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SOUGHT 
TO BELITTLE THE CONTEST. — LINCOLN'S VIEW OF THE WAR AS A RIOT. — SEWARd's 
LETTER TO THE EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS. — EARLY ACTION OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE 
WITH RESPECT TO THE WAR. — MR. GREGORY'S LETTER TO THE LONDON TIMES. — NORTH 
ERN CONCEIT ABOUT THE WAR. — PROPHECIES OF NORTHERN JOURNALS. — A "THREE 
months' war. "^ELLSWORTH AND BILLY WILSON. — MARTIAL R^«iE IN THE NORTH. — 
IMPERFECT APPRECIATION OF THE CRISIS IN THE SOUTH. — EARLY IDEAS OF THE WAR 
AT ilONTGOMERY. — SECRET HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTION. — SOUTHERN 
OPINION OF YANKEE SOLDIERS. — WHAT WAS THOUGHT OF " KING COTTON." — ABSURD 
THEORIES ABOUT EUROPEAN RECOGNITION. — LOST OPPORTUNITIES OF THE CONB'EDERATE 
GOVERNMENT. — BLINDNESS AND LITTLENESS OF MIND NORTH AND SOUTH. — REFLECTION 
ON PUBLIC MEN IN AMERICA. — COMPARISON OF THE RESOURCES OF THE NORTHERN AND 
SOUTHERN STATES. — THE CENSUS OF I860.— MATERIAL ADVANTAGES OF THE NORTH IN 
THE WAR. — THE QUESTION OF SUBSISTENCE. — POVERTY OF THE SOUTH IN THE MATE- 
RIEL AND MEANS OF WAR. — HOW THE CONFEDERACY WAS SUPPLIED WITH SMALL 
ARMS. — PECULIAR ADVANTAGES OF THE SOUTH IN THE WAR. — THE MILITARY VALUB 
OF SPACE. — LESSONS OF HISTORY. — THE SUCCESS OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY, A 
QUESTION ONLY OF RESOLUTION AND ENDURANCE. — ONLY TWO POSSIBLE CAUSES OP 
FAILUBH. 

It is to be remarked that Yirginia did not secede in either the cu'cum- 
Btances or sense in which the Cotton States had separated themselves from 
the Union. She had no delusive prospects of peace to comfort or sustain 
her in the decisive step she took. She did not secede in the sense in which 
eeparation from the Union was was the primary object of secession. On 
the contrary, her attachment to the Union had been proved by tlie most 



ATTITUDE OF VntGINTA. 121 

untiring and noble efforts to save it ; her Legislature originated the Peace 
Conference, which assembled at "Washington in February, 1861 ; her 
representatives in Congress sought in that body every mode of honour- 
able pacification ; her Convention sent delegates to Washington to per- 
suade Mr. Lincoln to a pacific policy ; and in every form of public assem- 
bly, every expedient of negotiation was essayed by Yirginia to save the 
Union. When these eflforts at pacification failed, and the Government at 
Washington drew the sword against the sovereignty of States and insisted 
on the right of coercion, it was then that Yirginia appreciated the change 
of issue, and, to contest it, found it necessary to withdraw from the Union. 
Her act of secession was subordinate ; it was a painful formality which 
could not be dispensed with to contest a principle higher than the Union, 
and far above the promptings of passion and the considerations of mera 
expediency. 

It takes time for popular commotions to acquire their meaning and 
proper significance. A just and philosophical observation of events must 
find that in the second secessionary movement of the Southern States, the 
war was put on a basis infinitely higher and firmer in all its moral and 
consitutional aspects ; that at this period it developed itself, acquired its 
proj)er significance, and was broadly translated into a contest for liberty. 

It was in this changed view of the contest and on an issue in which 
force was directly put against the sentiment of liberty, that the Border 
States followed the lead of Virginia out of the Union. The particular 
occasion of the movement was not so much the fire at Sumter as the 
proclamation of Mr. Lincoln to raise forces, the only purpose of which 
could be the subjugation of the South. In this proclamation the issu# was 
distinctly put before the Border States ; for Mr. Lincoln called upon each 
of them to furnish their quotas of troops for a war upon their sister States. 
The unnatural demand was refused in terms of scorn and defiance. Gov. 
Magoffin of Kentucky replied that that State " would furnish no troops 
for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister JSouthern States." Gov. 
Harris of Tennessee notified Mr. Lincoln that that State " would not fur- 
nish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the 
defence of her rights." Gov. Ellis of North Carolina telegraphed to 
Washington : " I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of 
the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people." Gov. 
Rector of Arkansas replied in terms of equal defiance, and declared " the 
demand is only adding insult to injury ; " and Gov. Jackson showed an 
indignation surpassing all the others, for he wrote directly to Mr. Lincoln : 
" Your requisition in my judgment is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolu- 
tionary, and, in its objects, inhuman and diabolical.''^ The only Southern 
State that did not publicly share in this resentment, and that made it an 
occasion of official ambiloquy, was Maryland. Her Governor, Thomaa 



122 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Holladaj Hicks, had advised that the State should occupy for the present 
a position of " neutrality ; " and while he amused the country with this 
absurd piece of demagogueism, and very plainly suggested that in the ap- 
proaching election of congressmen, the people of Maryland might deter- 
mine their position, it is equally certain that he gave verbal assurances to 
Mr. Lincoln that the State would supply her quota of troops, and give 
him military support. 

The indications of sentiment in the Border States soon ripened into 
open avowals. Tennessee seceded from the Union on the 6th of May ; on 
the 18tli day of May the State of Arkansas was formally admitted into the 
Soutlfern Confederacy ; and on the 21st of the same month, the sovereign 
Convention of North Carolina, by a unanimous vote, passed an ordinance 
of secession. This latter State, although slow to secede and accomplish 
formally her separation from the Union, had acted with singular spirit in 
giving early and valuable evidence of sympathy with the Southern cause. 
Under the orders of her Governor, Fort Macon, near Beaufort, was seized 
on the 15th of April, and promptly garrisoned by volunteers from Greens- 
borough and other places. Fort Caswell was also taken, and on the 19th 
the Arsenal of Fayetteville was captured without bloodshed, thus securing 
to the State and the South sixty-five thousand stand of arms, of which 
twenty-eight thousand were of the most approved modern construction. 

Virginia had taken the decisive step, and passed her ordinance of 
secession on the ITtli day of April. It became an immediate concern to 
secure for the State all the arms, munitions, ships, war stores, and military 
posts within her borders, which there was power to seize. Two points 
were of special importance : one was the Navy Yard, at Gosport, with its 
magnificent dry-dock — its huge ship-houses, shops, forges, ware-rooms, 
rope-walks, seasoned timber for ships, masts, cordage, boats, ammunition, 
small arms, and cannon. Besides all these treasures, it had lying in its 
waters several vessels of war. The other point was Harper's Ferry on the 
Potomac Kiver, with its armory and arsenal, containing about ten thou- 
sand muskets and five thousand rifles, with machinery for the purpose 
of manufacturing arms, capable with a suflScient force of workmen, of 
turning out twenty-five thousand muskets a year. 

Movements to secure these places and their advantages were only par- 
tially successful. In two days a large force of volunteers had collected at 
Harper's Ferry. The small Federal force there requested a parley ; this 
was granted ; but in a short time flames were seen to burst from the 
armory and arsenal ; the garrison had set fire to the arms and buildings, 
and escaped across the railroad bridge into Maryland. The Yirginia 
troops instantly rushed into the buildings. A large number of the arms 
were consumed, but about five thousand improved muskets in complete 
order, and three thousand unfinished small arms, were saved. Th*? retreat- 



FIRST BLOOD IN BALTIMOKE. 123 

ing garrison had laid trains to blow up tlie workshops, but the courage 
and rapid movement of the Virginians, extinguished them, and thus saved 
to their State the invaluable machinery for making muskets and rifles. 

On the succeeding day preparations were made by the Federals for 
the destruction of the Navy Yard at Gosport, while reinforcements were 
thrown into Fortress Monroe. The work of destruction was not as fully 
completed as the enemy had designed ; the dry-dock, which alone cost 
several millions of dollars, was but little damaged ; but the destruction 
of property was immense. All the ships in the harbour, excepting an old 
dismantled frigate, the United States, were set fire to and scuttled. But 
the Merrimac, a powerful steam frigate of twenty-six hundred tons, new, 
fully equipped, and nearly ready for sea, was only partially destroyed, and 
became, as we shall hereafter see, a famous prize of the Confederacy. 

At this time it was exjDccted that Maryland would emulate the heroic 
example of Virginia, and cast her fortunes with that of the Confederacy. 
But two days after the secession of Virginia occurred a memorable colli- 
sion in the streets of Baltimore ; and the first blood of Southerners was 
shed on the soil of Maryland. When it became certain that Northern 
troops were to be assembled for the purpose of invading the seceded 
States, the indignation of the people of Maryland, and especially of Balti- 
more, could not be restrained. It being known that a body of volunteers 
from Massachusetts were coming through the city, on the 19th of April, 
a fierce and determined purpose to resist their passage was aroused. As 
several hundred of these volunteers, sixty of whom only were armed and 
uniformed, were passing through the city in horse-cars, they found the 
track barricaded near one of the docks by stones, sand, and old anchors 
thrown upon it, and were compelled to attempt the passage to the depot, 
at the other end of the city, on foot. A body of citizens got in front of the 
troops, checked their advance, shouting, threatening, taunting tliein as 
mercenaries, and uttering loud cheers for the Southern Confedei-acy. 
A Confederate flag was displayed by some of the crowd. Stones were 
thrown by some of the citizens ; two soldiers were struck down, and many 
others severely hurt. At this time the troops presented arms and fired. 
Several citizens fell dead, others were wounded, and falling, were borne 
ofi" by those near them. Fury took possession of the crowd ; up to this 
time they had used no weapons more deadly than stones, but now revolvers 
were drawn and fired into the column of ti'oops, and men were rushing in 
search of fire-arms. The firing on both sides continued in quick succes- 
sion of shots from Frederick to South streets. Several of the citizens fell, 
but, undismayed, they pressed the soldiers with an incessant and heavy 
volley of stones. The troops were unable to withstand the gathering 
crowd ; they were bewildered by their mode of attack ; they pressed along 
the streets confused and staggering, breaking into a lom whenever there 



124: THE LOST CAUSE. 

was an opportunity to do so, and turning at intervals to fire upon the 
citizens who pursued them. 

Harassed and almost exhausted, the troops at length reached Camden 
station. But here the fight continued without intermission ; stones were 
hurled into the cars with such violence that the windows and panelling 
were shattered ; the soldiers' faces and bodies were streaming with blood, 
and they could only protect themselves by lying down or stooping below 
the windows. Taunts clothed in the most fearful language, were hurled 
at them ; men pressed up to the windows of the car, presenting knives and 
revolvers, and cursing up in the faces of the soldiers ; and for half a mile 
along the track there was a struggling and shouting mass of human beings 
— citizens piling the track with obstructions, and policemen removing 
them as fast as possible. In the midst of the excitement, amid hootings, 
shouts, and curses, the train moved off ; and as it passed from the depot 
a dozen muskets were fired into the crowd, the volley killing a well-known 
merchant, who was taking no part in the fight, and was standing as a 
spectator at some distance from the track. 

In this irregular combat two soldiers were killed and several severely 
wounded ; while, on the other side, the casualties were more serious — nine 
citizens killed and three wounded. A terrrible excitement ensued in Bal- 
timore, and continued for weeks. The bridges on the railroad leading to 
the Susquehanna were destroyed ; the regular route of travel was broken 
up ; and large bodies of Northern troops were thus diverted from the 
railroad lines, and placed in the necessity of being carried in transpoi-ts to 
Annapolis. Mass meetings were held in Baltimore, and speeches of de- 
fiance made to the Government at Washington. The city council appro- 
priated five hundred thousand dollars for the avowed purpose of putting 
the city in a state of defence, but with the farther intent on the part of 
many, that instant measures should be taken to relieve the State from 
Federal rule. 

But this rule was steadily encroaching upon Maryland, and strengthen- 
ing itself beyond the hope of successful resistance. Each day Southern 
sentiment became more timid and equivocal, as the Federal pcrwer com- 
menced to display itself. The Legislature of Maryland at last put the 
State in an attitude of indefinite submission. It passed resolutions protest- 
ing against the military occupation of the State by the Federal Govern- 
ment, and indicating sympathy with the South, but concluding with the 
declaration : " Under existing circumstances, it is inexpedient to call a 
sovereign Convention of the State at this time, or take any measures for 
the immediate organization or arming of the militia." 

Baltimore was rapidly brought under the yoke. By a concerted move- 
ment of the Federal authorities, Col. Kane, the marshal of police, was 
arrested ; the Police Board suspended ; a provost-marshal appointed, and 



REIGN OF TERROR IN MARYLAND. 125 

Baltimore bronglit under the law of the drum-head. The municipal police 
were disbanded, and a reign of terror threatened to establish itself in what 
was already a condition of anarchy. The writ of habeas corpus was sus- 
pended ; the houses of suspected persons were searched ; blank warrants 
were issued for domiciliary visits ; and the mayor and members of the 
police board were arrested, and, without a trial, imprisoned in a military 
fortress. In other parts of the State, the inauguration of " the strong 
government" steadily progressed. And so thoroughly effective was it 
that in less than a month after the Baltimore riot, Maryland was raising 
her quota of troops under Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, and Governor 
Hicks had openly called for four regiments of volunteers to assist the 
Northern Government in its now fully declared policy of a war of invasion 
and fell destruction upon the South. But the history of such a change 
has to be read in the light of many circumstances. Disarmed ; not even 
allowed to retain its militia organization ; planted with troops ; subjected to 
an infamous and degraded sway ; cozened and betrayed by its Governor ; 
divided within itself ; its citizens separated by long-exasperated lines of 
prejudice ; its press exhausting itself to envenom the differences of men ; 
" susj)icion poisoning his brother's cup ; " corruption chaffering in public 
market-places for the souls of men ; and crime and outrage recognizable 
only before the tribunal of Despotism, it is not wonderful that Maryland 
became the easy prey of a Government that scrupled at no means of suc- 
cess and spared no opportunity for the perversion of the principles 
of men. 

Whether the easy subjugation of Maryland persuaded the people of 
the Korth that the war was to be a slight task, or whether that opinion is 
to be ascribed to their own insolent vanity, it is very certain that they 
entered upon the war with a light estimation of its consequences and with 
an exhibition of passion, rant and bombast, such, perhaps, as the world 
has never seen in similar circumstances. The Government at "Washington 
shared, or encouraged for its own purposes, the vulgar opinion that the 
war was soon to be despatched. It either believed, or affected to believe, 
that the Southern States would be reduced in a few months. But it is to 
be remarked that the Federal Government had a particular purpose in 
reducing, in popular opinion, the importance of the contest. It desired 
to attract volunteers by the prospects of short service and cheap glory ; 
and it was especially anxious to guard against any probability of recogni- 
tion by England or France of the new Confederacy, and to anticipate 
opinion in Europe by misrepresenting the movements of the Southern 
States as nothing more than a local and disorganized insurrection, inci- 
dental to the history of all governments, and unworthy of any serious 
foreign attention. It was in this view Mi*. Lincoln had framed his procla- 
mation, calling for an army of seventy-five thousand men. He took 



126 THE LOST CAUSE. 

especial pains to model this paper after a Kiot Act : to style sovereign 
States " unlawful combinations ; " and to " command the persons compos- 
ing the combinations aforesaid, to disperse and retire peaceably to their 
respective abodes within twenty days." 

But something more remarkable than this grotesque anticipation of a 
four years' war, was to emanate from the statesmanship at Washington. 
On the 4th of May, Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, wrote a letter of in- 
structions to Mr. Dayton, the recently appointed minister to France, 
designed as a circular notice to the European coiirts, which, as a tissue of 
misrepi'esentation and absurdity, and an exhibition of littleness in a poli- 
tician's cast of the future, is one of the most remarkable productions of 
the political history of the v/ar. h\ this document the Federal Secretary 
of State urged that Mr. Dayton could not he " too decided or too explicit " 
in assuring the French Government that there was no idea of the dissolu- 
tion of the Union ; and that the existing commotion was only to be ranked 
among the dozen passing changes in the history of that Union. He con- 
cluded : " Tell M. Thouvenel, then, M'ith the highest consideration and 
good feeling, that the thought of a dissolution of this Union, peaceably or 
by force, has never entered into the mind of any candid statesman here, 
and it is high time that it be dismissed by statesmen in Europe." Yet at 
the time this was penned eight millions of Mr. Seward's countrymen had 
decided on a dissolution of the Union, and the gathering armies of the 
South were within a few miles of tlie Federal capital. 

Meanwhile the action of the European Governments with reference 
to the war was thought to be indecisive, and was still the subject of a 
certain anxiety. The Britisli Government and the French Emperor, 
although they regarded and ranked the Confederate States as belligerents, 
proclaimed a strict neutrality in the war, and closed their ports to the 
armed vessels and privateers of either of the belligerents. The British 
House of Commons had deemed it necessary to adjourn the discussion of 
American affairs by the indefinite postponement of Mr. Gregory's notice 
of a motion on the subject. That gentleman had sought to defend his 
motion for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy in a letter in the 
London Times, of a power and ingenuity calculated to affect public 
opinion, and putting the question to the people of England and of France 
in every possible aspect. He pointed out the reasons of his advocacy of 
the recognition of the new Confederate republic in several particulars : as 
an effectual blow at the slave trade, " mainly carried on by ships sailing 
from Northern ports and floated by Northern capital ; " as an amelioration 
of the condition of slavery ; as a means of peace and unrestricted com- 
merce ; as a just retaliation upon the " Morrill " taiiff, the successful issue 
of Northern policy, against which the South had protested ; and as the 
vindication of the right of a people to assert their independence. Mr. 



NOKTHERN BOMBAST AND VANITY. 127 

Gregory concluded with tlie strong conviction that tlie interests of France 
and England were identical in the American question, and that " the 
recognition by these two great Powers of the Southern Confederacy would 
cause the war party in the North to pause before plunging their country- 
men deeper into the sad struggle." 

The idea promulgated at Washington of a ninety days' commotion was 
readily taken up by the Northern press, and was made the occasion of a 
volume of conceit, that was amusing enough in the light of subsequent 
events. Not a paper of influence in the North appeared to comprehend 
the importance of the impending contest ; and the commentary of rant, 
passion, and bombast upon it exceeded all known exhibitions of the insane 
vanity of the Northern people. 

" The rebellion " was derided in a style which taxed language for ex- 
pressions of contempt. The New York Tribune declared that it was 
nothing " more or less than the natural recourse of all mean-spirited and 
defeated tyrannies to rule or ruin, making, of course, a wide distinction 
between the will and power, for the hanging of traitours is sure to begin 
before one month is over." " The nations of Europe," it continued, "may 
rest assured that Jeff. Davis & Co. will be swinging from the battlements 
at Washington, at least, by the 4:th of July. AVe spit upon a later and 
longer deferred justice." 

The New York Times gave its opinion in the following vigorous and 
confident spirit : " Let us make quick work. The ' rebellion,' as some 
people designate it, is an unborn tadpole. Let us not fall into the delu- 
sion, noted by Hallam, of mistaking a ' local commotion ' for a revolution. 
A strong active ' pull together ' will do our work effectually in thirty days. 
We have only to send a column of twenty-five thousand men across the 
Potomac to Richmond, and burn out the rats there ; another column of 
twenty-five thousand to Cairo, seizing the cotton ports of the Mississippi ; 
and retaining the remaining twenty-five thousand, included in Mr. Lin- 
coln's call for seventy-five thousand men, at Washington, not because there 
is need for them there, but because we do not require their services 
elsewhere." 

The Philadelphia Press declared that " no man of sense could, for a 
moment, doubt that this much-ado-about-nothing would end in a month." 
The Northern people were " simply invincible." " The rebels," it prophe- 
sied, " a mere band of ragamuflins, will fly, like chaff' before the wind, on 
our approach." 

The West was as violent as the North or East, quite as confident, and 
valorous to excess. The Chicago Tribune insisted on its demand that the 
West be allowed to fight the battle through, since she was probably the 
most interested in the suppression of the rebellion and the free navigation 
of the Mississippi. " Let the East," demanded this valorous sheet, " get 



128 THE LOST CAUSE. 

out of the way ; this is a war of the West. We can fight the battle, and 
successfully, within two or three months at the furthest. Illinois can whip 
the South by herself. We insist on the matter being turned over to us." 

It is no wonder that, with the prospect of a short war extended from 
Washington and enlivened by pictures of cheap glory in the newspapers, 
the rage for volunteering in the iNorth should have been immense. Going 
to the war " for three months " (the term of the enlistment of volunteers) 
was looked upon as a sort of holiday excursion, and had peculiar attrac- 
tions for the firemen, the rowdies, and " roughs " of the ISTortliern cities, 
from which brutal material it was boasted that the North would gather 
the most terrible and invincible army that ever enacted deeds of war. 
Many of these men adopted the Zouave costume to add to the terrours of 
their appearance ; and a company of them actually went through the 
ceremony of being sworn in a public hotel in New York to " cut off the 
heads of every d — d Secessionist in the war." Such exhibitions of brutal 
ferocity were told with glee and devoured with unnatural satisfaction by 
the Northern people. If the rowdies were in constant scenes of disorder 
and violence before they were marched away — if Ellsworth's and Billy 
Wilson's men did knock down quiet citizens and plunder stores in New 
York and Washington, the story was merrily told even in the communities 
where these outrages were committed ; for these displays were taken as 
proofs of desperate courage, and the men so troublesome and belligerent 
towards quiet citizens were indicated as the terrible and ruthless crusaders 
who were to strike terrour to the simple armies of the South, and win the 
brightest and bloodiest laurels on the field of battle. 

But it was not only the vagrant and unruly classes of the great and 
vicious cities of the North that flocked to the standards of the war. The 
most quiet citizens could not resist the temptation of entering a race for 
cheap glory. The North was full of martial rage. The war spirit pervad- 
ed not only tlie holiday volunteer soldiers of the cities, but the country 
peoj)le, the shoemakers and cobblers of New England and the coal-heavers 
of Pennsylvania. Governor Dennison, of Ohio, telegraphed to Washing- 
ton, offering thirty thousand troops. Governor Weston, of Indiana, 
received offers showing that the same numbers were ready to come forward 
in his State. Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, was equally liberal in 
his assurances to Washington. Massachusetts and New York were press- 
ing with offers of men and money for " the three months' war." 

But while the North was making such insolent and giddy exhibitions 
on the threshold of the war, it must be confessed that, on the part of the 
South, there was also very imperfect appreciation of the impending crisis, 
and of the extent and solemnity of the adventure in which the Confederate 
States were to embark. 

In the first stages of the dispute the Southern leaders had declared that 



THE MONTGOMERY CONSTTTUTION. 129 

tliere waald be no war ; that the mere act of secession wonld exact from 
the IS'orth all that was claimed, and prove in the end a peaceful experi- 
ment. Heated orators in Charleston exclaimed that there would be no 
conflict of arms, and that they would be willing to drink all tlie blood 
shed in the contest. 

Again, when the Confederate Government was established at Mont- 
gomery the idea still prevailed that secession had the countenance of a 
large party in the North, and that the Black Republicans would find it 
impossible to get up a war in front of hostile States and in face of a parti- 
san opposition at home. This idea had especial hold of the mind of Presi- 
dent Davis. It has been thought a little strange that in the frame of the 
new government there should be such little originality ; that it shonld 
have exhibited so few ideas of political administration higlier tlian the 
Washington routine ; and that the Montgomery statesmen and legislators 
should have fallen into an almost servile copy of the old Federal Consti- 
tution. This has been accounted for by the circumstance that the new 
administration of the affairs of the South naturally fell into the hands of 
old AVashington politicians, who were barren of political novelty. But 
there is a more direct and especial explanation. It was expected that the 
assimilation of the Montgomery Constitution to that of the United States 
with some especial additions developing the democratic view and construc- 
tion of that latter instrument would have the effect of conciliating, or, at 
least, of neutralizing the Democratic party in the North. In the addrcs 
m the occasion of his inauguration. President Davis took especial pains t 
declare that the seceded States meditated a change only of the constituent 
parts, not the system of the government ; and he distinctly referred to the 
3xpectation that, with a Constitution differing only from that of their 
Aithers, in so far as it was explanatory of their well-known intent, freed 
from sectional conflicts, the States from which they had recently parted 
might seek to unite their fortunes with those of the new Confederacy, 
[ndeed, so far did this conceit go, that it was proposed in some of the 
Kiewspapers of the day — among them the New York Herald, then the 
affected friend of the South — that the Union should be " reconstructed " 
by the accession of the Northern States to the Montgomery Constitution, 
e;icluding perhaps the New England States, as odious to both parties in 
the reconstruction. 

But no sooner did these silly prospects of amicable association with 
Northern Democrats end and war blaze out at Sumter, than a new delu- 
sion took possession of the Confederate leaders. This was that the war 
would be decided speedily, and its history be compassed in a few battle- 
fields. It had been a theme of silly declamation thsit " the Yankees " 
woi..ld not fight ; and so-called statesmen in the South expounded the doc- 
txino. that a commercial community, devoted to the pursuit of gain, could 
9 



130 THE LOST CA.USE. 

never aspire to martial prowess, and were unequal to great deeds of arms. 
But if these orators had considered the lessons of history they would have 
found that commercial communities were among the most pugnacious and 
ambitious and obstinate of belligerents, and might have traced the dis- 
covery through the annals of Carthage, Venice, Genoa, Holland, and 
England. 

Another idea was that the victory of the South was to be insured and 
expedited by the recognition of the new Government by the European 
Powers. " Cotton," said the Charleston Mercury^ " would bring England 
to her knees." The idea was ludicrous enough that England and France 
would instinctively or readily fling themselves into a convulsion, which 
tlieir great politicians saw was the most tremendous one of modern times. 
But the puerile argument, which even President Davis did not hesitate to 
adopt, about the power of " King Cotton," amounted to this absurdity : 
that the great and illustrious power of England would submit to the inef- 
fable humiliation of acknowledging its dej)endency on the infant Confed- 
eracy of the South, and the subserviency of its empire, its political interests 
and its pride, to a single article of trade that was grown in America ! 

These silly notions of an early accomplishment of their independence 
were, more than anything else, to blind and embarrass the Confederate 
States in the great work before them. Their ports were to remain open 
for months before the blockade, declared by Mr. Lincoln, could be made 
effective ; and yet nothing was to be imported through them but a few 
tliousand stand of small arms, when, in that time, and through those 
avenues, there might have been brought from Europe all the needed muni- 
tions of war. Immense contracts were to be offered the Government, only 
to be rejected and laughed at. Golden opportunities were to be thrown 
away, while the Confederate authorities still persuaded themselves that the 
wai* was to be despatched by mere make-shifts of money, and a sudden 
rush of volunteers to arms. 

It is a curious speculation how to explain that two belligerents, like the 
North and South, could have shown such blindness and littleness of mind 
in entering upon the mighty and tremendous contest which was to ensue, 
and which had, in fact, become obvious and inevitable. But it is said 
that the Governments and leaders of each party only shared the general 
popular opinion on each side, as to the rapid decision of the war. This 
excuse is imperfect. Those who are put in authority and in the high places 
of government are supposed to have peculiar gifts, and an education and 
training suited to the art of governing and advising men ; they should be 
able to discern what the populace does not often see. Prescience is the 
Bpecialty of the statesman ; and because a populace is blind, that is no 
excuse for his defect of vision. For the false view obtaining at Washing- 
ton and at Montgomery in the opening of the war, there is a very curt and 



NORTHEKN AJH) SOUTHEEN EESOUKCES. 131 

quite sufficient explanation. It is that there was really but little states- 
manship in America, and that much which passed current under that 
HKme was nothing more than the educated and ingenious demagogueism, 
which reflects vividly the opinions of the masses, and acts out the fancies 
of the hour. It does seem indeed almost incredible that public men at 
"Washington and at Montgomery could have observed the crisis, without 
considering the resources and the temper of each section ; for each of these 
elements in the contest showed plainly enough that it was to be one of 
immense extent and indefinite duration. 

It will be interesting here to make a brief statement of the resources 
of the United States about the time of the war, and to show how they 
were divided between the two belligerents. 

The census of the United States, of 1S60, showed a population of mora 
than thirty-one millions. A w^eb of railroads, the wonder of the world, 
stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Missouri River ; and the most 
important of these had been constructed within the last thirty years, for in 
1830 there was but one railway connecting the great Lakes with tide-water. 
The total extent of these railroads was more than thirty thousand miles. 
Tlieir tonnage per annum was estimated at thirty-six million tons, valued 
at about four thousand millions of dollars. Such was the huge internal 
commerce of the United States. Tlieir manufactures formed an enormous 
fund of wealth ; they represented an annual product of two thousand mil- 
lions of dollars. In the census of 1860, we have, as the total assessed value 
of real estate and personal property in the thirty -four States and Territories 
the monstrous sum of sixteen thousand millions of dollars. 

But of population, of internal improvements, of manufactures, and of 
all artificial wealth the North held much the larger share. She had a 
population of twenty-three millions against eight millions in the South. 
The North had manufacturing establishments for all the requirements of 
peace and war. She had the advantages of an unrestrained commerce 
with foreign nations. She had all the ports of the world open to her 
ships ; she had furnaces, foundries, and workshops ; her manufacturing 
resources comj)ared with those of the South were as five hundred to one ; 
the great marts of Europe were open to her for supplies of arms and stores ; 
there was nothing of material resource, nothing of the apparatus of con- 
quest that was not within her reach ; and she had the whole world wherein 
to find mercenary soldiers and a market for recruits. 

Yet one fact is to be admitted here, which may strike many readere 
with surprise, and which furnishes a subject of curious refiection, with 
reference to what we shall hereafter see of the management of their re- 
sources by the Confederates. This remarkable fact is that about the 
beginning of the war the South was richer than tjie Nortli in all the 
necessaries of life. It is sufiicient to compile certain results from the 



132 THE LOST CAUSE. 

census of 1860 to sliow this : Of live stock (milcli cows, working oxen, 
other cattle, sheep and swine) in the Northern States there were two to 
each person ; in the Southern States, five to each person. Of wheat each 
person in the Northern States reckoned six bushels ; each white person in 
the Southern States about as much. Of Indian corn, each person in the 
Northern States reckoned twenty-eight bushels ; while in the Southern 
States each white person reckoned fifty-one bushels, and white and bi^ack 
together stood for thirty-five bushels per head. 

But the South entered the war with only a few insignificant manufac- 
tories of arms and materials of war and textile fabrics. She was soon to be 
cut off* by an encircling blockade from all those supplies upon which she 
had depended from the North and from Europe in the way of munitions 
of war, clothing, medicines, etc. She was without the vestige of a navy ; 
while, on the water, the North was to call into existence a power equiva- 
lent to a land force of many hundred thousand men. 

It had been feared that in the haste of preparation for the mighty con- 
test that was to ensue, the South would find herself poorly provided with 
arms to contend with an enemy rich in the means and munitions of war. 
But in respect of small arms, at least, she found herself amply furnished. 
Mr. Floyd, the Secretary of War under Mr. Buchanan's administration, 
had taken occasion to transfer to the different arsenals at the South more 
than one hundred thousand muskets. This proceeding was long a favorite 
theme of reproach and censure in the North, and was most unjustly taken 
as a proof of incipient treason in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet. It was cer- 
tainly an important assistance to the South (although this contribution of 
arms was really less than was due her) ; for without it she would have 
been hurried into the war with the few and very imperfect arms purchased 
by the States, or owned by the citizens.* 

* For years the accusation clung to Secretary Floyd that he improperly and fraudulently sup- 
plied the South with these muskets, and " the story of the stolen arms " was perpetuated in every 
variety of Yankee publication. It is strange indeed, as ex-President Buchanan remarks in a recent 
printed defence of his Administration, " to what extent public prejudice may credit a falsehood, not 
only without foundation, but against the clearest official evidence." Let us see how the facts re- 
duce this story of fraud and "treason:" In December, 1859, Secretary Floyd had ordered the re- 
moval of one-fifth of the old percussion and flint-lock muskets from the Springfield Armory, where 
they had accumulated in inconvenient numbers, to five Southern arsenals. The United States had, 
on hand, say 500,000 of these muskets; 115,000 includes all transferred to the Southern arsenals. 
And this order of distribution was made, almost a year before Mr. Lincoln's election, and several 
months before his nomination at Chicago. Again, in 1860, the aggregate of rifles and muskets dis- 
tributed was 10,151, of which the Southern and Southwestern States received only 2,849, or between 
jne-third and one-fourth of the whole number. It thus apgears that the Southern and Soutliwestern 
States received much less in the aggregate, instead of more than the quota of arms to which they were 
justly entitled under the law for arming the militia. Could the force of misreprentation further go than 
to torture from these facts the charge that Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War had fraudulently sent 
public arms to the South for the use of the insurgents ! Yet this is bat one example of that audacity 
and hardy persistence in falsehood displayed in all Northern publications concerning the war. 



TWO CAUSES OF FAILUKE. 138 

But it may be said here generally that against the vast superiority of 
the North in material resources and in the apparatus of war, the South 
had a set-ofi* in certain advantages, not appreciable perhaps by superficial 
observers, but which constitute a most important element in a true his- 
torical estimate of the match between the two belligerents. The coarse 
popular opinion in the North was that the superiority of numbers would 
give it an overwhelming preponderance of strength. But something more 
than numbers makes armies ; and war is not a duel, a single contest 
despatched according to an established routine. The South had a supei'iour 
animation in the war. She stood on the defensive ; and should thus have 
been able to put against the invading force two enemies : the opposing 
army and the people. She had, also, on her side one single advantage 
which should have been decisive of the contest — an advantage which no 
numbers could really surmount, or skill effectively circumvent. That 
advantage was sjpace. It had been the victor in many former wars 
When Napoleon invaded Russia, he won battles, he obtained the very 
object of his march ; but space defeated him — the length of the march from 
Warsaw to Moscow ruined him. When Great Britain attempted to subdue 
only that part of America that borders the Atlantic, space defeated her ; 
her armies took the principal cities, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, 
Savannah, Richmond ; but victories were barren of result, the Continental 
troops, dispersed in the country, were easily re-assembled, the lines of 
military occupation existed only on paper, and the process of conques 
became one of hopeless repetition, and was at last abandoned in despair. 

In an intelligent view of the precedents of history it might safely be 
predicted that the South, fighting on its own soil, and for it, and occupy- 
ing a territory of more than 728,000 square miles in extent, and in which 
the natural features of the country, in mountain, river, and swamp, were 
equivalent to successive lines of fortification, would be victor in the con- 
test, however unequally matched in men and the material of war, unless 
ike management of her affairs should hecome insane, or her ^people lose the 
virtue of endurance. 



CHAPTEE YIII. 

MR. Lincoln's eemaek about the wolf. — nis designs upon tlrginia. — federal occur a- 

TION OF ALEXANDRIA. — TRAGEDY AT THE MARSHALL HOUSE. — JACKSON, THE MARTYR. — 
THE AFFAIR OF GREAT BETHEL. — EASY VICTORY OF THE CONFEDERATES. — EXAGGERA- 
TIONS OP SOUTHERN NEWSPAPERS. — APPARENT LULL OF HOSTILITIES. — NEW DEMONSTRA- 
TIONS OF PUBLIC OPINION IN THE NORTH. — FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES AT WASHINGTON. — 
POPULAR CLAMOUR AGAINST PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND GEN. SCOTT. — EARLY INDICATIONS 
OF THE REAL OBJECTS OF THE WAR. — THE RIGHTS OF HUMANITY. — VIRGINIA THE GREAT 
THEATRE OF THE WAR. — THE GRAND ARMY OF THE NORTH. — CONSULTATION OF PRESIDENT 
DAVIS AND BEAUREGARD AND LEE. — BEAUREGARd's LINE OF DEFENCE IN NORTHERN VIR- 
GINIA. — SKETCH OF GENERAL BEAUREGARD. — HIS PERSON AND MANNERS. — HIS OPINION 
OF THE YANKEE. — THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC AND THE ARMY OF THE SHENANDOAH. — 

GEN. Johnston's evacuation of harper's ferry. — "stonewall" jackson's first 

AFFAIR WITH THE ENEMY. — JOHNSTON AMUSING THE ENEMY. — AFFAIR OF RICH MOUN- 
TAIN. — MCCLELLAn's march into NORTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. — ROSEORANs' CAPTURE OF 
THE CONFEDERATE FORCE ON RICH MOUNTAIN. — RETREAT OF THE CONFEDERATES FROM 
LAUREL HILL. — DEATH OF GEN. 6ARNETT. — EXTENT OF THE DISASTER TO THE CONFEDER- 
ATES. — THE " GRAND ARMY " ADVANCING ON MANASSAS. — JOHNSTOn's MOVEMENT TO 

Beauregard's line. — the battle of manassas. — the affair of ISth july. — long- 
street's GALLANT DEFENCE. — THEATRE OF THE GREAT BATTLE. — BEAUREGARD's CHANGE 
OF PURPOSE, AND HIS PLAN OF BATTLE. — THE STONE BRIDGE. — THE " BIG FOREST." — THE 
CONFEDERATES FLANKED. — THE DAY APPARENTLY LOST FOR THEM. — THE SCENE AT THE 
HENRY HOUSE.— TIMELY ARRIVAL OF JACKSON. — GEN. BEAUREGARD DISCONCERTED. — RIDE 
FROM THE HILL TO THE HENRY HOUSE. — THE BATTLE RESTORED. — THE BLOODY PLATEAU. 

THREE STAGES IN THE BATTLE. — THE LAST EFFORT OF THE ENEMY. — THE STRANGE 

FLAG. — ARRIVAL OF KIRBY SMITH. — THE GRAND AND FINAL CHARGE. — ROUT AND PANIC 
OF THE ENEMY. — THE FEARFUL RACE TO THE POTOMAC. — SCENES OF THE RETREAT. — 
FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERATES TO PURSUE, OR TO ADVANCE UPON WASHINGTON. — A LOST 

OPPORTUNITY. 

I 

Some weeks after the secession of Yirginia, Mr. Lincoln is said to have 
remarked that he " would soon get tlie wolf by the ears." He probably 
meant in this figure of the backwoodsman that he would soon secure the 
two important passages into Yirginia : that along the Orange and Alex- 
andria and Central Railroads towards Richmond, and that along the water 
avenue of the James. 



TKAGEDY AT THE MARSHALL HOUSE. 135 

On the 24th of May Alexandria was occupied by the Federals, tli6 
Virginia forces evacuating the town, and falling back towards Manassas 
Junction. The invasion was accomplished under the cover of night. It 
was attended by an incident which gave a lesson to the enemy of the spirit 
he was to encounter, and furnished the first instance of individual martyr- 
dom in the war. On one of the hotels of the town, the Marshall House, 
there was a Confederate flag flying. The proprietor of the hotel, 
Mr. Jackson, captain of an artillery company in his town, had deliberately 
declared that under any circumstances he would defend that flag with hia 
life, and had been deaf to the advice of his neighbours not to make his 
house, by this display, a sign for the enemy's attack. The flag could be 
seen from a window of the White House in Washington. As a company 
of Fire Zouaves, at the head of which was Col. Ellsworth, a iwotcge of 
Mr. Lincoln, entered the town in the gray of the morning, their com- 
mander swore that he would have the flag as his especial prize. He waa 
attended in his adventm*e by a squad of his men. Having found his way 
into the hotel, he got through a trap-door to its top, where he secured the 
obnoxious ensign ; but descending the ladder he found facing him a single 
man in his shirt sleeves, with a double-barrel gun in his hands. " Here 
is my trophy," exclaimed Ellsworth, displaying the flag on his arm. 
" And you are mine," replied Jackson, as he quickly raised his gun, and 
discharged its contents into the breast of the exultant Federal. Another 
moment and the brave Virginian was stretched by the side of his antag- 
onist a lifeless corpse ; for one of Ellsworth's men had sped a bullet 
through his brain, and another had thrust a bayonet into his breast as he 
was in the act of falling. 

In the low country of Virginia, in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe, an 
afiair occurred on the lOtli of June, which, though it is not to be ranked 
as a decisive engagement, was certainly a serious and well-timed check to 
the enemy in this direction. A Federal column, exceeding four thousand 
men, moved out from Fortress Monroe in the direction of Great Bethel, 
a church which stood about nine miles on the road leading south from 
Hampton. The position here had been entrenched by Gen. J. B. Ma- 
gruder, who had in his command about eighteen hundred men. It was 
designed by the enemy to attack the Confederates in their front, while 
another portion of the column should cross the creek, which ran here, some 
distance below, and attempt to get into the Confederate work through a 
gorge ^v'hich was supposed to be open. The attack in front was easily 
repulsed, as the Federals never dared to advance from the woods which 
obscured their position ; and when the 1st North Carolina Kegiuient Avas 
ordered forward, the enemy actually broke before this small force got 
within sixty yards of their position. Tlie column that had crossed the 
creek advanced with cheers, supposing that they had turned the Confed 



136 THE LOST CAUSE. 

erate position ; but a volley of musketry put them to fliglit, and the officei 
who led them, Major "Winthrop, was killed by the bullet of a North Caro- 
lina rifleman, as he in vain attempted to rally his men to the charge. 
The loss of the Confederates in this affair was one man killed and seven 
wounded; that of the enemy, by their own acknowledgment, was thirty 
killed and more than one hundred wounded. In the little experience of 
war on both sides the action of Bethel was rated as a famous battle, and 
was paraded through many columns of the newspapers. The cotemporary 
estimate of its imp(^-tance is ludicrous enough in the light of subsequent 
events, and in comparison with those monuments of carnage, which were 
hereafter to appear on the fields of Virginia. 

The comparative pause of warlike excitement after the affair of BetheX, 
and the apparent lull of hostilities, while, in fact, both Governments were 
making active preparations for the contest, was marked by some interest- 
ing demonstrations of public opinion in the North. It might have been 
noticed in this time, that public attention in the North was measurably 
turned from military movements to the financial aspects of the war, and 
to the provisions which the Northern Congress was so soon to be called 
upon to make, in order to meet present exigencies. A considerable por- 
tion of the Northern press appeared to show the same diversion of atten- 
tion ; and their tone might have been noticed to have become decidedly 
more healthy and pnident in leaving for a time the grosser excitements of 
war to ponder the vital concerns of the debts, taxes, burdens, and losses 
consequent upon hostilities. 

Some time ago, an ominous growl from Wall street had reached the 
ear of the Government at Washington. The discontent had since slowly 
and steadily manifested itself. Combinations were spoken of among 
Northern capitalists to terminate the war ; to grant no more loans or aids 
to the Government ; and to overrule the programme of the politicians at 
Washington by the superiour j)ower of their money and their commercial 
interest. The estimates of the Government had indeed become frightful. 
The cost of the war was rated at ten million dollars a week. Besides this, 
Congress was to be called upon to make a current annual appropriation 
for ordinary expenditures and interest on the debt, of at least one hundred 
and fifty millions of dollars, which indispensable estimate — however the 
war might be pushed for a time on credit — there could be no possible way 
of meeting unless by modes of direct taxation, in income taxes, excises, etc. 

The Northern Government had the most serious reasons to distrust 
the Wall street combination, and to put itself out of the power of capital- 
ists, who were plainly aggrieved by the prospect, that was now being 
steadily developed, of a long and expensive war, A Cabinet council was 
ftaiied, and Mr. Secretary Chase proposed a new plan of national loan. 
It was to make a direct appeal to the ])eaple to provide means for the 



OBJECTS OF THE WAR UNMASKED. 137 

prosecution of the war. Outside of the Cabinet, at whose board the plan 
was reported to have been well received, it met with the most strenuous 
objections. 

In these distresses and embarrassments of the Government, the bellicose 
elements of the North, resenting all prospects of peace, became more exact- 
mg than ever, and even accusatory of the authorities at Washington. 
The more violent New York papers demanded a vigorous military movo- 
ment on the part of the Government before the meeting of CongresSu 
They accused the Administration of supineness of policy and uncertaintv 
of purpose ; and they, even, did not hesitate to charge that the President 
and his Cabinet were conniving with " the rebels," and had consented to 
become parties to a negotiation for peace; These heated and uugenerouH 
expressions did not stop here. Personalities were freely indulged in. Thr 
President was vilely abused for not having recalled Mr. Harvey, the min 
ister to Portugal, because he had corresponded with the South Carolina 
authorities during Mr. Buchanan's administration ; and Gen. Scott, who 
was sacrificing for the Northern objects of the war, all that remained to 
him of the years and honours of a long life, was not spared from an 
atrocious libel charging him with having ofiered premiums to " treason " 
in procuring the restoration to the United States service and the promo- 
tion to a lieutenant-colonelcy of Major Emory, a Marylander, who had 
formerly resigned his command on the Indian frontier. 

These dissatisfied utterances, although they may have been but little 
annoying, personally, to the Government, were significant of other most 
serious troubles to be apprehended in the conduct of the war. They gave 
evidence of a sentiment in the North, at once fanatical and formidable, 
resolved to push the war beyond the avowed objects of the Government; 
and to resist any termination of it short of the excision or abolition of 
slavery in the South. This sentiment had, in fact, already become clamor- 
ous and exacting. A war short of the abolition of slavery was denounced 
as a farce^ and its mission of defending the Union was openly exchanged 
in the mouths of fanatics for that of achieving " the rights of humanity." 

In the mean time indications were obvious enough of the common 
intention of the belligerents to make the first great battles of the war in 
Virginia. Here was to open the first great chapter of Carnage — on a 
theatre at once wide and brilliant ; — filled with the array of armies of two 
powerful peoples, which brought from their wealth and long seasons of 
prosperity all that could invest war with destructive power and dramatic 
display ; — occupying a territory noble and inspired in historical memories 
— ^the name of which, " Yirginia^'' had ever been a word of magic pride 
throughout the breadth and length of a continent ; — and engaging in the 
issues of its imposing drama the liberties, or, at least, the independence of 
more than eight millions of men. 



138 THE LOST CAUSE. 

On the lines of the Potomac, Gen. Scott liad gathered one of the largest 
armies that had ever been seen in America. Nothing was left midone to 
compl<;te its preparations ; in numbers it was all that was desired ; and it 
was provided with the best artillery in the world. All the regulars east 
of the Kocky Mountains, to the number of several thousand, collected 
since February, in the citj' of Washington, from Jefferson Barracks, from 
St. Louis, and from Fortress Monroe, were added to the immense force of 
volunteers that had been brought down to the lines of t)ie Potomac. The 
following is the estimate of the force of this army at this time, obtained 
from official sources : Fifty -five regiments of volunteers, eight companies 
of regular infantry, four of marines, nine of regular cavalry, and twelve 
batteries, forty-nine guns. It was placed at the command of Gen. 
McDow^ell, who came to this important post of action ^Yitll the reputation 
of the greatest and most scientific general in the North, but who was to. 
run, indeed, a very short career of Yankee popularity. 

On the Confederate side, preparations for the coming contest were quite 
as busy, if not so extensive. At the beginning of June, Gen. Beauregard 
was in consultation with President Davis and Gen. Lee, at Kichmond, 
while, by means of couriers, they held frequent communication with 
Gen. Johnston, then in command near Harper's Ferry. The result was, 
that a militaiy campaign was decided upon, embracing defensive opera- 
tions in North Virginia and the Shenandoah Yalley, and the concentration 
of an army, under Beauregard, at the Manassas Gap railroad junction, 
and in the immediate locality. The position taken by Gen. Beauregard 
was one of great strength ; and probably no better for defensive purpose 
could be found in the whole State of Virginia. It was about midw^ay 
betw'een the eastern spur of the Blue Ridge and the Potomac below Alex- 
andria ; the right wing stretched ofi' towards the waters of the Occoquan 
through a wooded country ; the left was a rolling table-land readily com- 
manded from the successive elevations until it broke into a rough and 
intricate conntry that no army could pass without the greatest difficulty. 
The intei'vening country was commanded by Beauregard's army so per- 
fectly that there was scarcely a possibility of its being turned. A small 
stream, called Bull Eun, ran in this locality, nearly from west to east, to 
its confiuence with the Occoquan River, about twelve miles from the 
Potomac, and draining a considerable scope of country, from its source in 
Bull Run Mountain, to within a short distance of the Potomac at Oc- 
coquan. At Mitchell's Ford, the stream was about equi-distant between 
Centroville and Manassas, some six miles apart. There were a number 
of other fords ; but the banks of the stream were rocky and steep. 

Gen. Beauregard was fresh from the glories of Sumter. A brief 
account of this man, who was, indeed, the central figure in the early 
period of the war, will be interesting here. He w\as now forty-five years 



GENERAL BEAHEEGAED, 139 

old. His family was of French extraction, and had settled in Louisiana 
in the reign of Louis XY. In 1838, he was graduated at West Point, 
taking the s6cond honours in a class of forty-five. He entered the Mexi- 
can war as a lieutenant, obtained two brevets in it, the last that of major; 
and was subsequently placed by the Government in charge of the con- 
struction of some public buildings at New Orleans, as well as the fortifica 
tions on and near the mouth of tlie Mississippi. About the beginning of 
the year 1861, he was appointed superintendent of the Military Academy 
at West Point ; but the appoinment was revoked within forty-eight hours 
by President Bnchanan, f(,)r the spiteful reason, as is alleged, that Senator 
Slidell of Louisiana, the brother-in-law of the nominee, had given offence 
by a secession speech at Washington. Subsequently, Major Beauregard 
resigned his commission in the service of the United States, and was ap- 
pointed by Gov. Moore of Louisiana, Colonel of Engineers in the Provi- 
sional Array of the South ; from which position, as we have seen, he was 
called by President Davis to the defence of Charleston. 

Gen. Beauregard was singularly impassioned in defence of the cause 
which he served. He hated and despised " the Yankee ; " and it must 
be confessed was the author of some silly letters in the early part of the 
war, deriding the power of the enemy. That the South would easily whip 
the North was his constant assertion, even if the first " had for arms only 
pitch-forks and flint-lock muskets." Of the army which Gen. Scott was 
marshalling on the borders of Yirginia, he wrote that the enemies of tlio 
South were " little more than an armed rabble, gathered together hastily 
on a false pretence, and for an unholy purpose, with an octogenarian at 
its head ! " 

Beauregard's personal appearance could scarcely escape notice. He 
was a small, brown, thin man, with features wearing a dead expression, 
and hair prematurely whitened. His manners were distinguished and 
severe, but not cold ; they forbade intimacy ; they had the abruptness 
without the vivacity of the Frenchman ; but they expressed no conceit, 
and were not repulsive. He had ardour, a ceaseless activity, and an in- 
donn'table power of will. His notions of chivalry were somewhat stilted, 
and he had fought his first battle with an interchange of courtesies that 
induced a Frenchman to exclaim in Paris: " Quelle idee chevalresquo ! 
On voit que vous avez profile^ vous autres Americains^ de Vexemple. 
Frangais. Ce Oeneral Beauregard port un nom. Franqais ! " 

It is not to be wondered that Gen. Beauregard, with the eclat of the 
first victory of the war, and the attractions of a foreign name and manners, 
should have been the ladies' favourite among the early Southern generals. 
He was constantly receiving attentions from them, in letters, in flags, and 
in hundreds of pretty missives. His camp-table was often adorned with 
presents of rare flowers, which flanked his maps and plans, and a bouquet 



14-) THE LOST CAUSE. 

frequently' served him for a paper weight. There was perhaps a little 
tawdriness about these displays in a mihtarj camp ; but Gen. Beauregard 
had too much force of character to be spoiled by hero-worship, or by that 
part of popular admiration, the most dangerous to men intent on great 
and grave purposes^he flattery and pursuit of women. 

Beauregard's army in Northern Yirginia was then known as the Anny 
of the Potomac. In the latter part of July, its effective force was enumer-v 
ated as 21,833 men and twenty-nine guns. But there was within reach of 
it the Army of the Shenandoah, numbering little less than nine thou- 
sand men. 

This latter force was commanded by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, a native 
of Yirginia, who had distinguished himself in the Mexican war, and at the 
commencement of the present hostilities was at the head of the quarter- 
master's department in the United States Army with the rank of brigadier- 
general. Of the operations of his army in the Shenandoah Yalley it is 
necessary to make a brief sketch, as these operations were a necessary part 
of the early campaign of the Potomac, and an obvious prelude to the great 
battle of the 21st July we are proceeding to relate. 

In the latter part of May, Gen. Johnston assumed command of the 
Army of the Slienandoah, and, after a complete reconnoissance of Harper's 
Ferry and environs, he decided that the place was untenable, and, there- 
fore, determined to withdraw his troops to Winchester. At this time 
Gen. Patterson was advancing, with a strong force, fi'om Pennsylvania 
and Maryland into Yirginia, and it was supposed that an attempt would 
be made by that general to form a junction in the Shenandoah Yalley with 
Gen. McClellan, then advancing towards Winchester from the western 
parts of Yirginia. To prevent this junction Gen. Johnston abandoned 
Harper's Ferry, on the 13th of June, after first burning the railroad bridge 
and such buildings as were likely to prove most useful to the enemy. 

The Confederates retired to Winchester, but had scarcely arrived there 
when information was obtained that the Federals were still advancing ; 
and Gen. Jackson — afterwards known as the immortal " Stonewall " 
Jackson — with his brigade, was sent to the neighbourhood of Martins- 
burg, to aid Stuart's cavalry in destroying what they could of the Balti- 
more and Ohio Railroad stock, and thus check the enemy's movements. 
On the 2d of July, however, Patterson succeeded in crossing the Potomac 
at Williamsport ; the river being scarcely waist-deep there. Jackson fell 
back to Falling Waters, on the main road to Martinsburg, a running fire 
being kept up. A detachment of Federal troops was then sent forward to 
reconnoitre, and Jackson was encountered in a position where he had 
formed his men in line of battle, with four guns directly on the turnpike 
along which the enemy was advancing. For half an hour Jackson suc- 
ceeded in maintaining his ground ; but, at last, was compelled to fall back 



AFFAm AT RICH MOUNTAIN. l-ij 

Blowly, and finally to retire, when about to be outflanked, scarcely losing 
a man, and bringing off forty-fi.ve prisoners. 

Jackson having rejoined the main army under Johnston, at Winchester, 
Patterson fell back towards the river. Tlie design of this Federal com- 
mander appears to have been little more than a series of feints to detain 
Johnston in the Yalley of the Shenandoah, and to prevent the union of his 
forces with those of Beauregard, then strongly encamped on the plains of 
Manassas. But the design was transparent to Johnston, and, indeed, waa 
turned upon the enemy, for the more skilfully executed feint movement 
of Johnston completely deceived the enemy to the last moment. 

But while Johnston was thus keeping in check Patterson's column at 
the head of the Shenandoah Yalley, an important event, and one of no 
little disaster to the Confederate cause, was to occur in Northwestern Yir- 
ginia — as was designated that portion of the State beyond the western 
ridges of the Alleghany Mountains. It was designed by the Federal 
Government not only to secure this region, but to use it as a base from 
which to project columns of invasion into the Yalley of Yirginia and the 
rich counties of the Southwest. 



THE AFFAIR OF RICH MOUNTAIN. 

An army under Gen. George B. McClellan was to be used for this pur- 
pose. Its advanced regiments had already penetrated far in upon the line 
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ; had driven a small force from 
Philippi ; had occupied that town and Grafton, and had pushed forward, 
by country roads, from Wheeling and the Ohio River to Buckhannon, in 
Upshur County. The movements of McClellan were now directed towards 
Beverley, with the object of getting to the rear of Gen. Garnett, who had 
been appointed to the command of the Confederate forces in Northwest- 
ern Yirginia, and was occupying a strong position at Rich Mountain, in 
Randolph County. 

But the unskilful distribution of the Confederate forces and their in- 
adequate numbers contributed to the success of the enemy. The strength 
of Gen, Garnett's command was less than five thousand infantry, with ten 
pieces of artillery, and four companies of cavalry. The disposition of these 
forces was in the immediate vicinity of Rich Mountain. Col. Pegram 
occupied the mountain with a force of about sixteen hundred men and 
Bome pieces of artillery. On the slopes of Laurel Hill, Gen. Garnett waa 
intrenched with a force of three thousand infantry, six pieces of artillery 
and three companies of cavalry. 

The plans of the enemy promised a complete success. Gen. Rose- 
crans, with a Federal column of about three thousand men, was to gain, 



142 THE LOST CAUSE. 

by a difficult marcli througli the mountain, Pegram's left and rear, while 
McClellan attacked in front with five thousand men, and a number of 
pieces of artillery. Oa the 11th of July, before daybreak, Eosecrans' 
column was in motion. The path up the mountain was rugged and per- 
plexed beyond all expectation ; the weather was uncertain ; often heavy 
showers of rain poured down for hours, and when the clouds broke, the 
sun appeared and filled the air with heat. Througli the laurel thickets, 
clambering up ravines, slipping from stones dislodged and earth moistened 
by the rain, the Federals toiled up the n^ountain. As they advanced 
through the forest, the Confederate artillery posted on the top of the 
mountain, opened upon them, but with little effect, as their lines were con- 
cealed by the trees and brushwood. After some sharp skirmishing, Kose- 
crans threw out his men on either flank, with the view of surrounding the 
small Confederate force. Finding himself with three thousand of the 
enemy in his rear, and five thousand in his front, Col. Pegram endeavored 
to escape w4tli his command after a small loss in action. Six companies 
of infantry succeeded in escaping ; the other part of the command was 
surrendered as prisoners of war. 

As soon as Gen. Garnett heard of the result of the engagement at Rich 
Mountain, he determined to evacuate Laurel Hill, and retire to Huttons- 
ville by the way of Beverley. But this plan was disconcerted by a failure 
to block the road from Eieh Mountain to Beverley ; and Gen. Garnett 
was compelled to retreat by a mountain road into Hardy County. The 
retreat was a painful one, and attended with great suffering ; the pursuing 
enemy fell upon the rear of the distressed little army at every opportunity ; 
and at one of the fords on Little Cheat Piver four companies of a Georgia 
regiment were cut off, and Gen. Garnett himself was killed by one of the 
enemy's sharpshooters. 

The results of the engagements on the mountain and of the pursuit of 
the retreating army was not very considerable in killed and wounded — 
probably not a hundred on the side of the Confederates. But they had 
lost nearly all of their artillery, more than a thousand prisoners, and al- 
most the entire baggage of the command, p()rtions of which had been used 
in blocking the road against the enemy's artillery. 

But this early disaster to the Confederate cause was soon to be more 
than retrieved on a broader and more interesting theatre, and by one of the 
most decisive and dramatic victories of the war ; and to the direction of 
these important operations our narrative now takes us in the regular suc- 
cession of events. 

On the 18th of July, a despatch reached Gen. Johnston at Winchester, 
that the great Northern army was advancing on Manassas. He was im- 
mediately ordered to form a junction of his army with that of Beauregard, 
should the movement in his judgment be deemed Advisable. 



THE BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 143 

The " Grand Army," as the Northern newspapers entitled it, was at 
last ready to move, and only after a period of impatience on the part of 
the Northern people, that was clamorous and insolent with the assm-ance 
of victory. " On to Eichmond " had been the cry of ISTorthern newspapers 
for weelis ; extreme parties in the Federal Congress urged an immediate 
advance ; and it was thought to be so easy an enterprise to press forward 
and plant the stars and stripes in the Capitol Square of Richmond, that 
men wondered why Gen. Scott, who directed the military movements from 
Washington, did not at once grasp the prize within his reach, complete 
his reputation, and despatch the war. At last it was given out in Washing- 
ton that the Grand Army was ready to move ; and that Eichmond would 
be occupied probably in ten days. It was an occasion of peculiar hilarity, 
and the prospect of a triumphal entry of the Federal arms into Eichmond 
was entertained with every variety of public joy. Politicians prepared 
carriage-loads of champagne for festal celebration of the victory that was 
to be won ; tickets were printed and distributed for a grand ball in Eich- 
mond ; a stream of visitors to the battle-field set out from Washington, 
thronged with gay women and strumpets going to attend " the Manassas 
Eaces ; " and soon in the rear of McDowell's army was collected an in- 
decent and bedizened rabble to watch the battle from afar. Such an 
exhibition of morbid curiosity or of exultant hate has seldom been wit- 
nessed in the history of the civilized world. 



THE BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 

The great contest of arms was to be preceded by an affair which, 
however intended, proved of some importance. On the 18th of July, the 
enemy made a demonstration with artillery in front of Gen. Bonham's 
brigade, which held the approaches to Mitchell's Ford. Meanwhile, he 
was advancing in strong columns of infantry, with artillery and cavalry on 
Blackburn's Ford, which was covered by Gen. Longstreet's brigade. Be- 
fore advancing his infantry, the enemy maintained a fire of rifle artillery 
for half an hour ; then he pushed forward a column of over three thousand 
infantry to the assault. Twice the enemy was foiled and driven back by 
the Confederate skirmishers and Longstreet's reserve companies. As he 
returned to the contest, Longstreet, who commanded only twelve hundred 
bayonets, had been reinforced with two regiments of infantry and two 
pieces of artillery. Unable to effect a passage of the stream, the enemy's 
fire of musketry was soon silenced, and the afi'aii* became one of artillery. 
Gradually his fire slackened, and his forces were drawn ofi" in evident con- 
fusion. Sixty of his dead were found on the field. The Confederate 
casualties were unimportant — fifteen killed and fifty-three wounded. 



144 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Whatever the significance of this affair — whether or not it was 
intended as a mere " reconnoissance in force," according to the ene- 
my''& account — it was considered as a prehide to an important battle, 
and, in the artillery duel, which it had brought on, had given the Con 
federates great confidence in this unexpectedly brilliant arm 6f their 
service. Two days passed without any military event. But on 
the night of the 20th of July it was evident that the enemy was 
in motion. As the lights around Centreville seemed to die out about 
midnight, low murmuring noises reached the Confederate out-posts, as 
if large bodies of men were marching towards the Stone Bridge, where 
the extreme left of Beauregard's army rested. Tlie bumping of heavy 
wagons and artillery was distinctly audible, and words of command could 
be faintly heard in the still night. 

The sun of the 21st of July rose with more than usual splendour. It 
was a calm Sabbath morning. The measured sounds of artillery told that 
both armies were on the alert. Smoke curling away from the cannon's 
mouth rose slowly into the air ; glistening masses of troops could be seen 
on the distant landscape, and far away in the west rose the dark outline 
of the Blue Ridge, which enclosed, as an amphitheatre, the woods and 
hollows, the streams and open spaces of Manassas Plain. 

The night before the battle Gen. Beauregard had decided to take the 
offensive. Gen. Johnston had arrived during the day, but only with a 
portion of the Army of the Shenandoah ; five thousand of his men hav- 
ing been detained, on the railroad for want of transportation. It was 
determined that the two forces, less than thirty thousand effective men 
of all arms, should be united within the lines of Bull Run, and thence 
advance to the attack of the enemy, before Patterson's junction with 
McDowell, which was daily expected. But a battle was to ensue, dif- 
ferent in place and circumstances from any previous plan on the Con- 
federate side. 

The Confederate army was divided into eight brigades, stretching for 
eight or ten miles along the defensive line of Bull Run. The right of the 
line was much stronger than the left, in position and numbers ; the 
extreme left at Stone Bridge being held by Colonel Evans with only a regi- 
ment and battalion. It had been arranged by McDowell, the Federal 
commander, that the first division of his army, commanded by Gen. Tyler, 
should take position at Stone Bridge, and feign an attack upon that point, 
while the second and third divisions were, by routes unobserved by the 
Confederates, to cross the run, and thus effect a junction of three formi- 
dable divisions of the grand army, to be thrown upon a force scattered 
along the stream for eight miles, and so situated as to render a concerted 
movement on their part impracticable. 

A little after sunrise the enemy opened a light cannonade upon Col 



THE BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 145 

Evans' position" at Stone Bridge. This continued for an hour, while the 
main body of the enemy was inarching to cross Bull Run, some two miles 
above the Confederate left. Discovering, to his amazement, that the 
enemy had crossed the stream above him, Col. Evans fell back. x\s 
the masses of the enemy drew near, military science pronounced the day 
lost for the Confederates. They had been flanked by numbers appar- 
ently overwhelming. That usually fatal and terrible word in military 
parlance — '-'• fianked'''^ — may be repeated with emphasis. 

It is true that Col. Evans, who had held the position at Stone Bridge, 
where the enemy's feint was made, had discovered the nature of that 
demonstration in time to form a new line of battle, as the main body of 
the enemy emerged from the " Big Forest," where it had worked its 
way along the tortuous, narrow track of a rarely-used road. But the 
column that crossed Bull Run numbered over sixteen thousand men of 
all arms. Col. Evans had eleven companies and two field-pieces. Gen. 
Bee, with some Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi troops, moved up to 
his support. The joint force was now about five regiments and six field- 
pieces. That thin line was all that stood between sixteen thousand Fed- 
erals and victory. It is wonderful that this small force of Confederates 
should have, for the space of an hour, breasted the unremitting battle- 
storm, and maintained for that time odds almost incredible. But they 
did it. It was frequently said afterwards by military men in Richmond, 
that tlie Confederates had been whipped, but that the men, in the novelty 
of their experience of a battle-field, " did not know it." 

But at last the blended commands of Bee and Evans gave way before 
the surging masses of the enemy. The order for retreat was given by 
^General Bee. The Confederates fell back sullenly. Their ranks were 
fast losing cohesion ; but there was no disorder ; and, at every step of 
their retreat, they stayed, by their hard skirmishing, the flanking columns 
of the enemy. There were more than five-fold odds against them. The 
enemy now caught the idea that he had won the day ; the news of a 
victory was carried to the rear ; the telegraph flashed it to all the cities 
in the North, and before noon threw Washington into exultations. 

General Bee had a soldier's eye and recognition of the situation. The 
conviction shot through his heart that the day was lost. As he was 
pressed back in rear of the Robinson House, he found Gen. Jackson's 
brigade of five regiments ready to support him. It M'as the timely 
arrival of a man who, since that day, never failed to be on the front 
of a battle's crisis, and to seize the decisive moments that make vic- 
tories. Gen. Bee rashed to the strange figure of the Virginia com- 
mander, who sat his horse like marble, only twisting his head in a 
high black stock, as he gave his orders with stern distinctness. " Gen- 
eral," he pathetically exclaimed, " they are beating us back." " Then, 
10 



146 THE LOST CAUSE. 

sir," replied Jackson, " we'll give them the bayonet." The -words were 
as a new inspiration. Gen. Bee turned to his over-tasked troops, exclaim- . 
ing, " There are Jackson and his Yirginians standing like a stone-wall. 
Let ns determine to die here, and we will conquer." 

In the meantime, where were the Confederate Generals — Beanreijard 
and Johnston ? Tliej were four miles away. Gen. Beauregard had 
become involved in a series of blunders and mishaps, such as had been 
seldom crowded into a single battle-field. In ignorance of the enemy's 
plan of atttack, he had kept his army posted along Bull Run for more 
than eight miles, waiting for his wily adversary to develop his purpose 
to him. lie had, at an early hour of the morning, determined to attack 
with his right wing and centre on the enemy's flank and rear at Centre- 
ville, with precautions against the advance of his reserves from the direc- 
tion of Washington. Even after his left flank had been so terribly en- 
gaged, he supposed that this movement would relieve it ; and in his 
official report of the action, he writes : " by such a movement, I con- 
fidently expected to achieve a complete victory for my country by 13 
o'clock, M." 

It was half-past ten in the morning, when Gen. Beauregard learned 
that his orders for an advance on Centreville had miscarried. He and 
Gen. Johnston had taken position on a commanding hill, about half a 
mile in the rear of Mitchell's Ford, to watch the movements of the enemy. 
"While they were anxiously listening there for sounds of conflict from the 
Confederate front at Centreville, the battle was bursting and expending 
its fury upon their left flank. From the hill could be witnessed the grand 
diorama of the conflict. The roar of artillery reached there like pro- 
tracted thunder. The whole valley was a boiling crater of dust and 
smoke. The enemy's design could be no longer in doubt ; the violent 
fijing on the left showed, at last, where the crisis of the battle was ; and 
now inmiense clouds of dust plainly denoted the march of a large body of 
troops from the Federal centre. 

Not a moment was now to be* lost. It was instantly necessary to 
make new combinations, and these the most rapid, to meet the enemy 
on the field upon which he had chosen to give battle. It was evident 
that the left flank of the Confederates was being overpowered. Dashing 
on at a headlong gallop, Gens, Beauregard and Johnston reached the field 
of action, in the rear of the Bobinson House, just as the commands of Bee 
and Evans had taken shelter in a wooded ravine, and Jackson's brigade 
had moved up to their left, to withstand the pressure of the enemy's at- 
tack. It was a thrilling moment. Gen. Johnston seized the colours of 
the 4th Alabama regiment, and ofiered to lead the attack. Gen. Beaure- 
gard leaped from his horse, and turning his face to his troops, exclaimed : 
" I have come here to die with you." 



Til 10 BAITLE OF MANASSAS. 147 

In llie meantime the Confederate reserves were rapidly moving up 
to support the left flank. The movement of the right and centre, begun 
by Jones and Longstreet, was countermanded. Holmes' two regiments 
and a battery of artillery of six guns, Early's brigade and two regiments 
from Eonham's brigade, with Kemper's four six-pounders were oi"dered up 
to support the left flank. The battle was re-established ; but tlie aspect of 
affairs was }'et desperate in the extreme. Confronting the enemy's attack 
Gen. Beauregard had as yet not more than sixty-flve hundred infantry and 
artillerists, with but thirteen pieces of artillery, and two companies of 
cavalry. Gens. Ewell, Jones (D. R.), Longstreet and Bonham had been 
directed to make a demonstration to their several fronts, to retain and 
engross the enemy's reserves and forces on their flank, and at and around 
Centi'eville. Gen, Johnston had left the immediate conduct of the field 
to Beauregard, and had gone in the direction of the Lewis House, to urge 
reinforcements forward. 

Tlie battle was now to rage long and fiercely on the plateau designated 
by the two wooden houses — the Henry and Eobinson House — which 
stood upon it. Gen. Beauregard determined to repossess himself of the 
position, and formed his line for an assault ; his right rushed to the 
charge, while his centre, under Jackson, pierced that of the enemy. The 
plateau was won, together with several guns ; but the enemy threw for- 
ward a heavy force of infantiy, and again dispossessed the Confederates. 
It was evident that the latter were being slowly overpowered by the 
weight of numbers. A force, estimated at twenty thousand infantry, 
seven companies of cavalry, and twenty-four pieces of artillery were bear- 
ing hotly and confldently down on their position, while perilous and 
heavy reserves of infaiitry and artillery hung in the distance. 

It was now about two o'clock in the afternoon. Fortunately the 
reinforcements pushed forward, and directed by Gen. Johnston to the 
required quarter, were at hand just as Gen. Beauregard had ordered for- 
ward a second effort for the recovery of the disputed plateau. The bri- 
gade of Holmes and another were put in the line. Additional pieces of 
artillery came dashing uj^, and a new inspiration seemed to be caught by 
the Confederates. The line swept grandly forward ; shouts ran along 
it ; and steadily it penetrated the fire of the enemy's artillery. The 
whole open ground was again swept clear of the enemy ; but it was 
strewn with the evidences of a terrible carnage. Gen. Bee had fallen 
near the Henry House, mortally wounded. A little further on, Col. 
Bartow, of Georgia had fallen, shot through the heart — and one of 
the bravest and most promising spirits of the South was there quenched 
in blood. But the tide of fortune had changed ; the plateau was now 
(irmly in our possession ; and the enemy, driven across the turnpike 
and into the woods, was visibly disorganized. 



148 THE LOST CAUSE. 

But tlierc were to be three stages in the battle of Manassas. "We have 
ah-eadj described two : the enemy's flank movement and momentary vic- 
tory, and the contest for the plateau. The third was now to occur ; and 
the enemy was to make his last attempt to retrieve the fortune of the day. 

His broken line was rapidly rallied. He had re-formed to renew the 
battle, extending his right with a still wider sweep to turn tlie Confed- 
erate left. It was a grand spectacle, as this crescent outline of battlo 
developed itself, and threw forward on the broad, gentle slopes of the 
rido-e occupied by it clouds of skirmishers ; while as far as the eye could 
reach, masses of infantry and carefully-preserved cavalry stretched through 
the woods and fields. 

But while the Federals rallied their broken line, under shelter of fresh 
brigades, and prepared for the renewal of the struggle, telegraph signals 
from the hills warned Gen. Beauregard to " look out for the enemy's 
advance on the left." At the distance of more than a mile, a column of 
men was approaching. At their head was a flag which could not be dis- 
tinguished ; and, even with the aid of a strong glass. Gen. Beauregard 
was unable to determine whether it was the Federal flag, or the Confed- 
erate flag — that of the Stripes or that of the Bars. " At this moment," 
Baid Gen. Beauregard, in speaking afterwards of the occurrence, " I must 
confess my heart failed me. I came, reluctantly, to the conclusion that, 
after all our efibrts, we should at last be compelled to leave to the enemy 
the hard-fought and bloody-field. I again took the glass to examine the 
flag of the approaching colmxm ; but my anxious inquiry was unpro- 
ductive of result — I could not tell to which army the waving banner 
belonged. At this time all the members of my staff were absent, having 
been despatched with orders to various points. The only person with me 
was the gallant ofiicer who has recently distinguished himself by a bril- 
liant feat of arms — General, then Colonel, Evans. To him I communi- 
cated my doubts and my fears. I told him that I feared the approaching 
force was in reality Patterson's division ; that, if such was the case, I 
would be compelled to fall back upon our reserves, and postpone, until 
the next day, a continuation of the engagement." 

Turning to Col. Evans, the anxious commander directed him to pro- 
ceed to Gen. Johnston, and request him to have his reserves collected in 
readiness to support and protect a retreat. Col. Evans had proceeded but 
a little way. Both officers fixed one final, intense gaze upon the advancing 
flag. A happy gust of wind shook out its folds, and Gen. Beauregard 
recosrnized the Stars and Bars of the Confederate banner ! At this 
moment an orderly came dashing forward. " Col. Evans," exclaimed 
Beauregard, his face lighting up, " ride forward, and order General 
Kirby Smith to hurry up his command, and strike them on the flank 
and rear ! " 



THE BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 149 

It was the arrival of Kirby Smith with a portion of Johnston's army 
left in the Shenandoah Valley, \vhich had been anxiously expected during 
the day ; and now clieer after cheer from regiment to regiment announced 
his welcome. As the train approached Manassas with some two thousand 
infantry, mainly of Elzey's brigade, Gen. Smith knew, by the sounds of 
firing, that a great struggle was in progress, and, having stopped the 
engine, he had formed his men, and was advancing rapidly through the 
fields. He was directed to move on the Federal left and centre. At 
the same time, Early's brigade, wliich had just come up, was ordered to 
throw itself upon the right flank of the enemy. The tw^o movements were 
made almost simultaneously, while Gen. Beauregard himself led the 
charge in front. The combined attack was too much for the enemy. 
The fact was that his troops had already been demoi-alized by the former 
ex])eriences of the day ; and his last grand and formidable array broke 
and crumbled into pieces under the first pressure of the assault. A 
momentary resistance was made on a rising ground in the vicinity of 
wdiat was known as the Chinn House. As the battle surged here, it 
looked like an island around which flames were gathering in all direc- 
tions. The enemy was appalled. He had no fresh troops to rely on ; 
his cannon were being taken at every turn ; lines were no sooner formed 
than the Confederates broke them again ; they gave way from the long- 
contested hill ; the day was now plainly and irretrievably lost. 

As the enemy was forced over the ridge or narrow plateau, his former 
array scattered into flight, spreading each moment, until the fields were 
Boon covered with the black swarms of flying soldiers. But into this 
general and confused rout a singular panic penetrated, as by a stroke of 
lightning, and rifted the flying army into masses of mad and screaming 
fugitives. As the retreat approached Cub Kun bridge, a shot from 
Kemper's battery took effect upon the horses of a team that was crossing ; 
the wagon was overturned in the centre of the bridge, and the passage 
obstructed ; and at once, at this point of confusion, the Confederates com- 
menced to play their artillery upon the train carriages and artillery wagons, 
reducing them to ruins. Hundreds of flying soldiers were involved in 
the counnon heap of destruction ; they dashed down the hill in heedless 
and headlong confusion ; the main passage of retreat was choked ; and for 
miles the panic spread, flying teams and wagons confusing and dismem- 
bering every corps, while hosts of troops, all detached from their regi- 
ments, were mingled in one disorderly rout. Yehicles tumbled against 
each other ; riderless horses gallopped at random ; the roar of the flight 
M-as heard for miles through clouds of dust ; and as the black volume of 
fugitives became denser, new terrours would seize it, which called for 
agonizing efi:brts at extrication, in wliich horses trampled on men, and 
great wheels of artillery crushed out the lives of those who fell beneath 
them. 



150 THE LOST CAUSE. 

It was not only at Cob Kun bridge that the retreat had been choked. 
Fugitive thousands rushed across Bull Run bj the various fords, and 
horse, foot, artillery, wagons, and ambulances were entangled in inextri- 
cable confusion. Clouds of smoke and dust marked the roads of retreat, 
and rolled over the dark green landscape in the distance. Where the 
roads were blocked, some of the troops took to the fields and woods, throw- 
ing away their arms and accoutrements ; and from the black mass of the 
rout might be seen now and then a darting line of figures in Avhich panic- 
stricken men and riderless horses separated from the larger bodies, and 
fled wildly through the country. Even the sick and wounded were 
dragged from ambulances ; red-legged Zouaves took their places ; men 
in uniform mounted horses cut out of carts and wagons. Never was there 
such a heterogeneous crowd on a race-course. Soldiers, in every style of 
costume ; ladies, who luia come with opera-glasses to survey the battle ; 
members of Congress and governors of States, Mdio had come with cham- 
pagne and after-dinner speeches to celebrate a Federal victory ; editors, 
special correspondents, telegraph operators, surgeons, paymasters, parsons 
— all were running for dear life — disordered, dusty, powder-blackened, 
screaming or breathless in the almost mortal agonies of terrour. 

For three miles stretched this terrible diorama of rout and confusion, 
actually without the pursuit or pressure of any enemy upon it ! The Con- 
federates had not attempted an active pursuit. The only demonstration 
of the kind consisted of a dash by a few of Stuart's and Beckham's cav- 
alry, in the first stages of the retreat, and a few discharges of artillery at 
Centreville, where the Confederates had taken a gun in position. The cry 
of " cavalry " was raised, when not a Confederate horseman was within 
miles of the panic-stricken fugitives, who did not abate their mad strug-. 
gle to escape from themselves, or cease their screams of rage and fright, 
even after they had passed Centreville, and were heading for the waters 
of the distant Potomac. 

Over this route of retreat, now thronged with scenes of horrour, there 
had passed in the morning of the same day a grand army, flushed with the 
hopes of victory, with unstained banners in the wind, and with gay trap- 
pings and bright bayonets glistening through the green forests of Vir- 
ginia. A few hours later, and it returns an indescribable rout — a shape- 
less, morbid mass of bones, sinews, wood and iron, throwing off here and 
there its nebula of fugitives, or choking roads, bridges, and every avenue 
of retreat ; halting, struggling, and thrilling with convulsions at each beat 
of artillery that sounded in the far distance, and told to the calm mind 
that the Confederates had rested on their victory. 

It was not until the sight of the Potomac greeted the fugitives that 
their terrours were at all moderated. Even then they were not fully 
assured of safety, or entirely dispossessed of panic. At Alexandria, the 



II 



THE BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 151 

rusli of troops upon tlie decks of the river boats nearly snnk them. At 
Washington the raih'oad depot had to be put under strong guard to keep 
off the fugitives, who struggled to get on the Northern trains. They were 
yet anxious to put a greater distance between themselves and the terrible 
army, whoso vanguard, flushed with victory and intent upon planting its 
flag on the iS^orthern capitol, they aready imagined on the banks of the 
Potomac, within sight of their prize, and within reacli of their revenge. 

But the Confederates did not advance. The victorious army did not 
move out of the defensive lines of Bull Kun. It is true, that within the 
limits of the battle-field, they had accomplished a great success and accu- 
mulated the visible fruits of a brilliant victory. They had not only de- 
feated the Grand Army of the JSTorth, but they had dispersed and demoral- 
ized it to such an extent, as to put it, as it were, out of existence. "With 
an entire loss in killed and wounded of 1,852 men, they had inflicted a loss 
upon the enemy which Gen. Beauregard estimated at 4,500, in killed, 
wounded, and prisoners ; they had taken twenty-eight pieces of artillery 
and live thousand small arms ; and they had captured nearly all of the 
enemy's colours. But the Confederates showed no capacity to understand 
the extent of their fortunes, or to use the unparalleled opportunlies they 
had so bravely won. At any time within two ^veeks after the battle, 
Washington might have fallen into their hands, and been taken almost aa 
an unresisting prey. Patterson had only ten thousand men before the 
battle. His army, like the greater part of McDowell's, was composed of 
three months' men, who refused to re-enlist, and left for their homes in 
thousands. The formidable hosts that had been assembled at Washington 
were fast melting away, some slain, many wounded, more by desertion, 
and yet more by the ending of their terms of enlistment and their persist- 
ent refusal to re-enter the service. On the Maryland side, Washington 
was then very inadequately defended by fortifications. The Potomac was 
fordable above Washington, and a way open to Georgetown heights, 
along which an army might have advanced without a pros23ect of success- 
ful resistance. It needed but a marcb of little more than twenty miles to 
crown the victory of Manassas witli the glorious prize of the enemy's 
capital. 

But the South was to have its first and severest lesson of lost oppor- 
tunity. Por months its victorious and largest army was to remain inac- 
tive, pluming itself on past success, and giving to the North not only time 
to repair its loss, but to put nearly half a million of new men in the field, 
to fit out four extensive armadas, to open new theatres of the war, to per- 
fect its " Anaconda Plan," and to surround the Confederacy with armies 
and navies whose operations extended from the Atlantic border to the 
western tributaries of the Mississippi. 



CHAPTER IX. 



thk "v.-otory of manassas, a misfoetttife for the confederates. — relaxation in eioh- 
mond. — plotting among confederate leaders for the presidential succession. — 
Beauregard's political letter. — active and elastic spirit of the north. — reso- 
lution OF THE federal CONGRESS. — ENERGY OF THE WASHINGTON ADMINISTRATION. — 
ITS IMMENSE PREPARATIONS FOR THE PROSECUTION OF THE WAR. niE MISSOURI CAM- 
PAIGN. — THE POLITICS OF MISSOURI. — STERLING PRICE AND HIS PARTY. — IMPRUDENCE 

AND VIOLENCE OF THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES IN MISSOURI. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN 

GENS. PRICE AND HARNEY. — GOV. JACKSON's PROCLAMATION. — MILITARY CONDITION OF 
MISSOURI. — HER HEROIC CHOICE. — AFFAIR AT BOONEVILLE. — COMPOSITION OF THE PATRIOT 
ARMY OF MISSOURI. — ENGAGEMENT AT CARTHAGE. — CONFEDERATE EEINT0ECEMENT3 
UNDER MCCULLOCH. — DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN PRICE AND MCCULLOCH. — NOBLE CONDUCT 

OF PRICE. THE BATTLE OF OAK HILL. MCCULLOCH SURPRISED. A FIERCE FIGHT. 

DEATH OF GEN. LYON. THE FEDERALS DEFEATED. — WITHDRAWAL OF MCCULLOCH's 

forces into arkansas. — operations in northern missouri. — fremont in command 
of the federal forces in missouri. — his proclamation emancipating the slaves. 
— its novelty and brutality. — repudiated at washington. — the siege of lexing- 
ton. — its surrender to price. — gallantry of col. mulligan. — critical position 

of price. — his disappointment of confederate succour. his adroit retreat. 

Missouri's ordinance of secession. — fremont superseded. — three military mes- 
sengers IN pursuit of him. — excitement in his camp. — PRICE AT SPRINGFIELD. — CLOSE 
OF THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN MISSOURI. — THE CAMPAIGN, A CHAPTER OF WONDERS. — MIS- 
SOURI MANHOOD. — THE WESTERN VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN. — RESOURCES AND WEALTH OF THB 
WESTERN SECTION OF VIRGINIA, — WISE's COMMAND. — THE ENEMY IN THE KANAWHA 

VALLEY. — wise's RETREAT TO LEWISBURG. — THE FLOYD BRIGADE. ADVANCE OF THE 

JOINT FORCES TOWARDS THE GAULEY. — THE AFFAIR AT CROSS LANES. — MOVEMENT OF 
EOSEORANS. — AFFAIR OF CARNIFAX FERRY. — FLOYD AND WISE FALL BACK TOWARDS SEWELL 
MOUNTAIN. — AN UNFORTUNATE QUARREL OF COMMANDERS. — OPERATIONS OF GEN. LEE IN 
NORTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. — HIS FAILURE AT CHEAT MOUNTAIN. — COL. RUST's PART IN 
THE AFFAIR. — MOVEMENT OF LEE TO THE LINE OF LEWISBURG. — HOW ROSECRANS ESCAPED 

FROM HIM. ENGAGEMENT ON THE GREENBRIER RIVER. — GEN. 11. E. JAOKSON's SUCCESS. — ■ 

FAILURE OF THE WESTERN VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN. GEN. LEe's NEW COMMAND. 

The victory of Manassas proved the greatest misfortune that could 
have befallen the Confederacy. It was taken by the Soutliern public as the 
end of the war, or, at least, as its decisive event. Nor was this merely a 



MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE SOUTH. 153 

nilgar delusion. President Davis, after the battle, assured liis intimate 
friends that the recognition of the Confederate States by the European 
Powers was now certain. The newspapers declared that the question of 
manhood between North and South was settled forever ; and the phrase 
of " one Southerner equal to five Yankees " was adopted in all s}A-echos 
about the war — although the origin or rule of the precise proportion was 
never clearly stated. An elaborate article in " De Bow's Review " com- 
pared Manassas with the decisive battles of the w^orld, and considered that 
the war would now degenerate into mere desultory affairs, preliminary to 
a peace. On the whole, the unfortunate victory of Manassas was ibllowed 
by a period of fancied security, and of relaxed exertions on the part of the 
Southern people highly dangerous and inauspicious. The best proof of 
this inactivity is to be found in the decrease of enlistments by volunteers. 

There are to be found in the politics and literature of the Confederacy 
at this time, some very singular indications of the exaggerated and foolish 
confidence which took place upon the event of Manassas. So certain, after 
this event, was supposed to be the term of Confederate existen(;e, that poli- 
ticians actually commenced plotting for the Presidential succession, more 
than six years distant. Mr. Hunter of Virginia about this time left Mr. 
Davis' Cabinet, because it was said that he foresaw the errours and unpop- 
ularity of this Administration, and was unwilling by any identiti cation 
with it to damage his chances as Mr. Davis' successor in the Presi- 
dential ofiice. Gen. Beauregard was already designated in some quarters 
as the next Confederate President ; and the popular nominee of an honour 
six years hence, wrote a weak and theatrical letter to the newspapers, dated 
"Within Hearing of the Enemy's Guns," and declaring: "I am not 
either a candidate, nor do I desire to be a candidate, for any civil ofiice in 
the gift of the people or Executive." There was actually a controversy 
between different States as to the location of the capital of a Government, 
the existence of w^hich they could not understand was yet imperilled by war. 
The controversy w^ent so far that the city council of Nashville, Tennessee, 
approi)riated $750,000 for a residence for the Pi'esident of the Southern 
Confederacy, as an inducement to remove the capital there. 

It is remarkable that the statesmen of Pichmond did not observe the 
singular temper of the authorities at Washington, on the news of their 
defeat at Manassas. On the very day that Washington was crowded with 
fugitives from the routed army, the Federal Congress legislated calmly and 
patiently throughout ; and the House of Representatives, passed unani 
mously the following resolution : 



^^ Iiesohed, That the maintenance of the Constitution, the preservation of tlie Union, 
and the enforcement of the laws, are sacred trusts which must be executed ; tliat no dis- 
aster shall discourage us from the most ample performance of this hijih duty ; and that 



154 THE LOST CAUSE. 

we pledge to the country and the world the employment of every resource, national and 
individual, for the suppression, overthrow, and punishment of rebels in arms." 

"While tlio South reposed on the laurels of Manassas, the active and 
elastic spirit of the North was at work to repair its fortunes. It accom- 
plislied wonders. It multiplied its armies ; it huilt navies with infuriate 
energy ; it recovered itself from linancial straits which distant observers 
thought hopeless ; a few weeks after the battle of Manassas it negotiated 
a loan of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, at a fraction above the 
legal interest of New York ; in short, its universal mind and energy were 
consolidated in its war upon the South. There is no more remarkable 
phenomenon in the whole history of the war than the display of fully- 
awakened Northern energy in it, alike wonderful in the ingenuity of its ex- 
pedients and in the concentrated force of its action. At every stage of the 
war the North adojDted the best means for securing specific results. It 
used the popularity of Fremont to bring an army into the Held. It com- 
bined with tlie science of McClellan, Buell, and Ilalleck, such elements of 
popularity as could be found in the names of Banks, Butler, and Baker. 
It patronized the great ship-brokers and ship-owners of New York to create 
a navy. The world was to be astonished soon to find the North more 
united than ever in the prosecution of the contest, and the proportions of 
the war so swollen as to cover with its armies and its navies the frontiers 
of half a continent. 

While these immense preparations were in progress in the North, and 
while the South indulged its dreams of confidence, there was a natural 
pause of large and active operations in the field. The months of summer 
and early fall following the battle of Manassas are barren of any great 
events in the history of the war. But within this period there occurred 
two campaigns, remarkable fur other circumstances than decisive influence, 
taking place on widely separated theatres, and yet much alike in their 
features of discursive contest. These were the campaigns in the distant 
State of Missouri and in the mountainous regions of Western Virginia. 



THE MlSSOUfel CAMPAIGN. 

The politics of Missouri had always been strongly Southern. As early 
as 18iS-'9, when the North was evidently intent upon excluding the South 
from the territory obtained in the Mexican war — acquired principally by 
the blood of Southern soldiers — the Legislature of Missouri passed resolu- 
tions affirming the rights of the States, as interpreted by Callioun, and 
pledging Missouri to " co-operate with her sister States in any measure 
they might adopt " against Northern encroachments. On opposition to 



THE MISSOURI (JAJIPAIGN- 155 

tlicse resolutions, Mr. Benton was defeated for the United States Senate ; 
and they remained on the statute-book of Missouri unrepealed to the date 
of the war. 

In the last Presidential campaign, Missouri, under one of those appa 
rent contradictions or delusions not uncommon in American politics, gave 
her vote for Douglas. Thi^ result was obtained chiefly through the influ- 
ence of Sterling Price, who had formerly been Governour of the State, 
had previously represented her in Congress, and was a man of commanding 
influence with his party. 

Price and his party were strongly attached to the Union, and hoped 
that it might be perpetuated with safety and honour to the Soutli. Of the 
Convention called in January, 1861, not a single member was yet ready 
to avow the policy of secession ; and Price himself, who had been returned 
as a Union man without opposition, was elected its president. 

But the Federal authorities in Missouri did not show that prudence 
which the occasion called for ; they did nothing to conciliate the disposi- 
tion of the Convention ; and as events marched onward, the designs of 
the Washington Government were too plainly unmaslced, to leave any 
doubt with the people of Missouri of the fate prepared for them. 

In the city of St. Louis there had been several collisions between the 
citizens and Federal soldiery ; and those anxious to keep the peace of the 
State had reason to fear that these riots would be the inaugurating scenes 
of revolution. On the 10th of May, 1861, Capt. (afterwards General) 
Lyon of tlie Federal army, had compelled the unconditional surrender of 
a brigade of Missouri militia, encamped under the State law. This high- 
handed proceeding was attended by other outrages. All the arms and 
ammunition in St. Louis were seized ; houses were searched ; and a line 
of military posts extended around the city, gave evidence of a reign of 
terrour. 

About this time, Sterling Price, having been commissioned by Gov. 
Jackson of Missouri as major-general, proceeded to consult with Gen. 
Harney, of the Federal forces, as to the best mode of " restoring peace and 
good order to the people of the State, in subordination to the laws of the 
General and State Governments." In view of the riotous demonstrations 
at St. Louis, Price, having " full authority over the militia of the State," 
undertook, with the sanction of the Governour, to mauitain order ; and 
Gen. Harney declared that he had no intention of using the military at 
his connnand, to cause disturbance. Both recom.mended the citizens to 
keep quiet, and attend to their ordinary occupations. 

But soon after this. Gen. Ilai'ney was removed by orders from Wash- 
ington. Gen. Price continued to busy himself with the duties of his com- 
mand, and on the 4th of June, issued an address, in wJiich be declared tliat 
the people of Missouri should exercise the right to choose their own posi- 



156 THE LOST CAUSE. 

tion in any contest which might be forced upon them, unaided by any 
military force whatever. He referred to a report of the intention of the 
Federal authorities to disarm those of the citizens of Missouri who did not 
agree in opinion with the Administration at Washington, and put arms in 
the hands of those who in some localities of the State were supposed to 
sympathize with the views of the Federal Government ; and he added : 
" The purpose of such a movement could not be misunderstood, and it 
would not only be a palpable violation of the agreement referred to, and 
an equally plain violation of our constitutional rights, but a gross indignity 
to the citizens of this State, Avliich would be resisted to the last extremity," 
In the conclusion of his address he wrote : " The people of Missouri can- 
not be forced, under the terrours of a military invasion, into a position not 
of their own free choice. A million of such people as the citizens of Mis- 
souri were never yet subjugated, and if attempted, let no appi-ehension be 
entei'tained of the result." 

On the 13th of June, 1861, Gov. Jackson issued his proclamation call- 
ing for fifty thousand volunteers. Price appointed nine brigadier-generals. 
These preparations were large on paper ; but the brigadiers had no actual 
force at their command ; and even, if men wore not lacking, arms and 
ammunition were ; and as for military training and discipline, there had 
been for years no military organization, and not even a militia muster in 
Missouri. It was thus poorly prepared for the contest that the State of 
Missouii, separated from her confederates and alone, showed a heroism 
almost unexampled in history in spurning the plea of " helplessness," and 
confronting the entire power of the Korth, at a time indeed when North- 
ern newspapers were declaring that she was but as a mouse under the 
lion's paw. 

The lirst development of the campaign on the part of Gen. Price was 
to issue orders to the several brigadiers just appointed, to organize their 
forces as rapidly as j^ossible, and push them forward to Booneville and 
Lexington. His ulterior design was, having collected at Lexington volun- 
teers fVoni the whole region accessible to it, to march down to the extreme 
southwest part of the State where subsistence was abundant ; where op- 
portunity might be had to organize his army ; and where he expected to 
be joined by Confederate forces from Arkansas under the command of 
13rig.-Gen. McCulloch. 

No serious thought was entertained of giving battle at Booneville. 
About eighteen hundred Missourians were assembled in camp near there ; 
and not more than one-third of them were armed. They had not a piece 
of artillery ; and their small arms were generally of a very imperfect 
kind, including single-barrelled shot-guns and rifles. On the 20th of June, 
Gen. Lyun, with a well-appointed Federal force about three thousand 
strong, debarked near Booneville. The six hundred armed Missourians, 



AFFAIR AT BOONEVILLE. 157 

ander command of Col. Marmaduke, were posted in loose order in a Avood 
along a wheat-field not far from the water's edge. Seeing no reasonable 
hope of holding his position against a column of Federals advancing with 
eight pieces of artillery, Col. Marmaduke ordered his little force to retreat. 
The men I'efused to obey the order ; and re(;eived the advancing enemy 
with a close volley, under which more than a hundred fell killed and 
wounded. But the shock of the encounter, as the enemy came on, was too 
much for the thin and irregular line of these desperately brave men, and 
they were soon scattered in flight. Their loss was inconsiderable — three 
men killed, and twenty-five or thirty wounded ; and they had given to 
the enemy his first lesson of the com^age and adventure of the " rebel 
militia " of Missouri. 

After the singular affair of Booneville, Gov. Jackson, who had taken 
the field, commenced to retire his small force towards Warsaw ; intending 
to eff'ect a junction with Price, and to continue with him the line of march 
to the southwestern angle of the State. This was efi'ected on the night of 
the 3d of July ; the column from Lexington forming a junction with Jack- 
son's forces in Cedar County. The plan of campaign w^as now to get as 
far as possible from the line of the Missouri River, which gave facilities 
for attack to the enemy, who could bring forward overwhelming numbers 
before Gen. Price could possibly oi'ganize his forces in this vicinity and 
throw them in fighting posture. 

The very night of the junction of the two columns, an order was issued 
for the report and organization of the entire force. Two thousand men 
reported to Brig. -Gen. Bains, six hundred to Brig.-Gen. Slack, and about 
five hundred each to Brig.-Gens. Clark and Parsons ; making an entire 
force of about thirty -six hundred men. This, then, was the Patriot Army 
of Missouri. It was a heterogeneous mixture of all human compounds, 
and represented every condition of Western life. There were the old and 
the young, the rich and poor, the high and low, the grave and gay, the 
planter and labourer, the farmer and clerk, the hunter and boatman, the 
merchant and woodsman. At least five hundred of these men were entirely 
unarmed. Many had only the common rifle and shot-gun. None were 
provided with cartridge-boxes or canteens. They had eight pieces of can- 
non, but no shells, and very few solid shot or rounds of grape and canis- 
ter. Rude and almost incredible devices were made to supply these 
wants : trace-chains, iron-rods, hard pebbles, and smooth stones were sub- 
stituted for shot ; and evidence of the effect of such rough missiles was to 
be given in the next encounter wuth the enemy. 

On the 4tli of July, with his motley, ill-provided, brave army. Gen. 
Jackson, then in command, took up his line of march for the Southwest, 
where he hoped to join McCulloch. In the mean time, however. Gen. 
Sigel, with a column of Federals three thousand in number, had been sent 



158 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ont from St. Louis on the southwestern branch of the Pacific Kailroad to 
Rolhi, and had arrived at the town of Cartilage, immediately in Jackson's 
front, tlnis threatening him with battle in the conrse of a few hoin's. 
About ten o'clock in the morning of the 5th of July, the Missouri ans ap- 
proached a creek within a mile and a half of the enem}^, whose forces in 
three detachments were admirably posted upon the brow of a hill. 

The first important encounter of arms in Missouri was now to take 
place. Gen. Jackson found great difliculty in forming his line of battle 
and in deploying his cavaky under the constant fire of Sigel's batteries. 
Gen. Sigel had assured his men that there would be no serious conflict ; 
he had remarked that the Missourians were coming into line like a worm- 
fence, and that a few grape and canister thrown into their midst would soon 
involve them in confusion and put them to flight. But he was terribly 
undeceived. When it was found impossible, on account of the rawness of 
their horses, to get the cavalry in position under flre, the order was given 
for the infantry to charge the enemy ; the cavalry to come up at the 
same time in supporting distance. They advanced at the double-quick 
w4th a shout. The Federals retreated across Bear Creek, a wide and deep 
stream, destroying the bridge over which they had crossed. They still 
continued their retreat along the bank of the creek, for the distance of a 
mile or more, and formed behind a skirt of timber. 

The Missourians had to cross an open field ; they were exposed to a 
raking fire before they could reach the enemy's cover. A number of the 
cavalry dismounted, and acted with the infantry, so as to put in active use 
all the small arms brought upon the field. They rushed towards the skirt 
of timber, and opened vigorously upon the enemy across the stream, who 
returned the fire with spirit. For the space of an hour the flj.'e on each 
side was incessant and fierce. At last, the Missourians threw a quantity 
of dead timber into the stream, and commenced crossing in large numbers, 
when the enemy again abandoned his position, and started in the direction 
of Carthage, eight miles distant. A running fight was kept up all the way 
to Carthage. Here the enemy again made a stand, forming ambuscades 
behind houses, wood-piles, and fences. After a severe engagement there 
of some forty minutes, he retreated under cover of night in the direction of 
Holla ; never halting until the next day, about forty miles from the field 
of battle, over twelve of which he had been pursued by men, whom Gen. 
Sigel had expected to capture, almost without a fight. 

The results of the day were greatly encouraging and gratifying to the 
Missourians. These raw and poorly-armed men had driven a well-dis- 
ciplined enemy from three difi'erent positions. Their own loss was prob- 
ably not more than fifty killed and one hundred and fifty wounded ; that 
of the enemy, who had suflPered greatly in his retreat, about three times as 
large. No wonder that with this experience of the fighting qualities of 



ENGAGEMENT AT CABTHAGE, 159 

the people against whom tliej had to contend, the Federal commanders in 
Missouri were awakened to a senae of the magnitude of the work befoie 
them. 

The day succeeding this engagement, Gen. Price, who had hitherto 
been detained from active command by a severe sickness, arrived at 
Carthage, accompanied by Brig.-Gen. McCullocli of the Confederate forces, 
and Maj.-Gen. Pearce of the Arkansas State troo])S, Avith a force of nearly 
two thousand men. Tliese timely reinforcements were hailed with great 
joy ; and the patriot army was alike animated by the appearance of their 
beloved commander, and the assurance, which McCullocli's presence gave 
them, of the friendly feeling and intention of the Confederate Government. 

The next day the forces at Carthage, under their respective commands, 
took np their line of march for Cowskin Prairie, near the boundary of the 
Indian Nation. Here they remained for several days, organizing and 
drilling ; Gen. Price still continued to receive reinforcements ; and the 
whole numerical strength of the command was now rated about ten thou- 
sand. With this force, although yet imperfectly armed, it was decided 
to venture on the offensive ; and it having been ascertained that the Fed- 
eral commanders, Lee, Sturgis, Sweeny, and Sigel, were about to form a 
junction at Springfield, it was determined by Price, McCulloch, and 
Pearce, to march upon that place, and attack the enemy w'here he had 
taken his position in force. 

When the army reached Crane Creek, about thii'ty miles from Spring- 
field, a consultation was held as to their future course. Gen. Price ear- 
nestly advocated an advance. Gen. McCulloch doubted its prudence. He 
looked with great concern on the large proportion of undisciplined men 
in Price's command ; he regarded the unai-med men as incumbrances ; and 
he concluded that the unorganized and undisciplined condition of both 
wings of the army suggested the wisdom of avoiding battle with the disci- 
plined enemy upon his own ground and in greatly superiour numbers. 
Gen. Price resented the idea of the nature of the materials under his com- 
mand, and assured McCulloch that when the time of battle came, these 
untauglit and headstrong men would fight together and with a resolution 
which would spurn defeat. He requested the Confederate commander to 
loan a number of arms from his command for the use of such Misssouri 
soldiers as were unarmed, believing that, with the force at his command, 
he could wliip the enemy. This McCulloch refused, and still declined the 
responsibility of ordering an advance of the whole command. 

But in the midst of this hesitation Gen, McCulloch received a general 
order from Gen. Polk, commander of the Southwestern division of the Con- 
federate army, to advance upon the enemy in Missouri. Another council 
was called. McCulloch exhibited the order he had received, and ofiered 
to march at once upon Springfield, upon condition that he should have the 



160 THE LOST CiUSE. 

chief command of the aimy. The question of rank was one of no little 
embarrassment. Price was a Major-General in the State service. McCul- 
loch was a Brigadier-General in the Confederate service. If the State 
troops were merely militia, and Price a General of Militia, the question 
was at once settled — McCulloch would have been entitled to precedence. 
But the Missourians, with much show of reason, contended that their State 
had assumed an independent attitude, and by her laws, as a sovereign, 
had raised an army which was on a regular military footing, and therefore 
their Major-General was entitled to command. 

The question was solved by Price in a noble and patriotic spirit. He 
relinquished his post to McCulloch, expressing himself in substance as fol- 
lows : " I seek not distinction ; I am not fighting for that ; but in the 
defence of the liberties of my countrymen. It matters little xvhat position 
I hold. I am ready to surrender, not only the command, but my life as a 
sacrifice to the cause." That his services and his presence among the men 
should not be lost, he took a subordinate position in the forthcoming con- 
test. McCulloch assumed chief command, and Price w^as a division 
general under him ; and thus the army marched forward to meet the foe. 



THE BATTLE OF OAK HILL. 

On the Yth of August, McCulloch reached a camp three miles from 
Wilson's Creek, and twelve miles from Springfield. His command was 
thus composed : the Missouri forces numbered eight thousand, of whom 
only about six thousand were armed ; the Confederate troops were three 
thousand two hundred, coming from Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas ; 
and there were eighteen hundred Arkansas Stare troops under General 
Pearce. The total effective force was thus about eleven thousand, of 
whom nearly six thousand were mounted ; and it had fifteen pieces of 
artillery. 

General Lyon had assembled at Springfield an effective army of nearly 
ten thousand men, consisting of his own and Col. Totten's forces from 
Booneville and St. Louis, and the troops heretofore acting under Gens. 
Sigel and Sturgis and Col. Sweeny. About two thousand were " home 
guards," of Missouri, the rest were United States regulars and volunteers 
fi'om the Northwestern States. Their artillery consisted of sixteen pieces 
— several batteries being of the regulaj service. 

On the 9th of August McCulloch moved up to Wilson's Creek, intend- 
ing to advance upon the enemy at Springfield. But Lyon had anticipated 
him, and was already moving in three heavy columns. The next morning 
before sunrise, the enemy had succeeded in obtaining the position he 
desired ; and McCuUoch, who was quietly taking breakfast at the time, 



THE BATTLE OF OAK HILL. 163 

was surprised by liis comiers announcing that the enemy were in siglit 
and in great force, and had gained both sides of his camp. 

On the right Gen. Sigel liad ah-eady opened a heavy fire. By muffling 
the wheels of his cannon, he had succeeded, under cover of the night, in 
getting positions near McCulloch's camp, and now poured into it a severe 
and destructive fire. Gen. Lyon led the attack on the left. 

Eeinforcements were rapidly hurried in the direction of Sigel's attack. 
Gen. McCulloch sent forward Col. Hebert's Louisiana Volunteers and 
Mcintosh's mounted Arkansians, who, moving to the left, gained a position 
along a fence enclosing a cornfield. Here Mcintosh dismounted his men, 
and the two regiments rapidly advanced in the face of a galling fire. A 
terrible conflict of small arms ensued. Undismayed, breasting a deadly 
fire, the gallant men of these regiments leaped the fence, and drove the 
enemy before them back upon his main body. But still Sigel's artillery 
continued to play with damaging efiect. A battery, commanded by Capt. 
Eeid, was brought up to oppose it. Seizing the critical moment. Gen. 
McCulloch placed himself at the head of two companies of a Louisiana 
regiment near him, and marching to the right, drew rapidly upon the 
adverse guns. At the same time, Mcintosh and Hcbert, with their men, 
came up, and with a loud cheer, they rushed upon the enemy's cannoniers, 
driving them from their guns. This gallant charge swept everything 
before it ; five guns were taken ; and nothing could now arrest the tide of 
success on the right. Sigel fell back in confusion, and lost his last gun in 
a retreat which had now become irretrievable. 

Having cleared their right and rear, it became necessary for the Con- 
federate forces to direct all their attention to the centre, where Gen. Lyon 
was pressing upon the Missourians with all his strength. To this jjoint 
Mcintosh's regiment, Churchill's regiment on foot, Gratiot's regiment, and 
McRae's battalion were rapidly moved. Along the whole line of the hill, 
upon which the enemy was posted, a terrible fire of musketry was now 
kept up. Tlie roar of the battle was tremendous, bursting along two op- 
posing lines which swept for miles over the rolling fields. Masses of infan- 
try fell back and again marched forward. The summit of the hill was 
covered with the dead and wounded. Totten's battery on the enemy's 
side did fearful execution. "With the loss of many men and horses, the 
Federal battery, after a fierce engagement with Woodrufi''s, was with 
difiiculty withdrawn. Part of it was again planted where it swept the 
front — part was masked to meet an advance. At this moment, when the 
fortunes of the day yet hung in doubt, two regiments of Gen. Pearce's 
command were ordered forward to support the centre. Reid's battery was 
also brought up and the Louisiana regiment was again called into acttion 
on the left of it. The enemy was now evidently giving way. 

Gen. Lyon had marked the progress of the battle with deep anxiety. 
11 



162 THE LOST CAUSE. 

He saw that his men were unable to advance against the sheet of fire "be- 
fore them, and he marked with desperate concern the huge chasms in hia 
lines where his torn regiments had given waj. He had already boeff 
wounded in the leg, and a bullet had cut the scalp of his head. His horse 
was shot under him. Bloody and haggard, he turned to one of his offieere, 
and said : " I fear the day is lost — I will lead the charge." Eeraounting 
and riding rapidly to the front, he said simply to the nearest regiments, 
" Forward, men : I will lead you." He had advanced but a little way, 
when two small rifle-balls, or buckshot, pierced his breast. He reeled in 
his saddle, and fell dead from his lii)rse.* 

The Federal line pushed forward, but after a brief encounter was evi- 
dently staggered. McCulloch and Price threw forward nearly all their 
reserves. Totten's dreadful battery at last fell back. Missourians, Arkan- 
sians, Louisanians, and Texans pressed forward. The Federal centre 
gave way ; the wings were forced to the rear ; and with one v;ild yell, the 
Southerners broke upon their disordered ranks, pushing them back, and 
strewing the ground with their dead. The order to retreat was given, and 
soon the enemy's infantry columns, artillery, and wagons, were seen in the 
distance among the hills, rapidly making their way towards Springfield, 
defeated and driven from the field. 

The Federal loss could not have been less than two thousand in killed 
and wounded ; three hundred prisoners were taken, and six pieces of artil- 
lery. Gen. McCulloch officially stated his loss as two hundred and sixty- 
five kiMed and eight hundred wounded. More than half of this loss was 
among the Missourians commanded by Price. 

After the brilliant victory of Oak Hill — which for a time freed the 
whole of Southwestern Missouri from Federal rule — it unfortunately fell 
out that McCulloch and Price could not agree upon a plan of campaign. 

* Maj.-Gen. Nathaniel Lyon was a native of Connecticut, and had served in the regular army of 
ihe United States. He was an exception to the politics of that army ; for he was an undisguised 
and fanatical Abolitionist. He entered the United States army as second lieutenant in 1841, and 
was subsequently brevetted captain. He arrived in St. Louis in April, 1861, having been sent from 
a post far in the Southwest to stand a court-martial on the charge of peculation. Here his great 
activity in suppressing the excitement of Southern feeling, seizing the arsenal, erecting defences 
around the city, and disarming Southern sympathizers, recommended him to notice in the North 
and at Washington ; and he rapidly rose from the rank of captain to that of major-general in two 
months. He was undoubtedly an able and dangerous man : one who appreciated the force of au- 
dacity and the value of quicli decision. He was small in stature, wiry, active, of dark complexion : 
brave, to a fault ; and an excellent, though restless and ambitious officer. For several days before 
the battle in which he lost his life, he is said to have been a prey to uneasiness and disappointment, 
which brought upon his face a troubled look, observed by all around him. To one of his staflF he 
said gloomily, that he " beheved in presentiments," and could not rid himself of the idea that the 
coming battle would result disastrously. After he was dead, it was remarked that the same 
troubled look he had borne for days clung to his countenance in death. The fall of this man wnl 
undoubtedly a serious loss to the Federals in Missouri. 



FREMONT AT ST. LOUIS. 163 

The former therefore took the responsibility of withdrawing the Confed 
eratc forces, and retired with his army to tlie frontiers of Arkansas. Late 
in August, Gen. Price, abandoned by the Confederate forces, took up liis 
line of march for the Missouri River, with an armed force of about five 
thousand men, and seven pieces of cannon. He, however, continued to 
receive reinforcements from the north side of the Missouri River. On the 
7th of September he encountered a force of irregular Federal troojis under 
the notorious Lane and Montgomery, at a place called Drywood, some 
fifteen miles east of Fort Scott. Defeating and brushing this force from his 
path, Price threw a small garrison into Fort Scott, and pressed on towards 
Lexington, the main object of his movement. 

In the meantime the active and adventurous demonstrations of Bng;.- 
Gen. Harris, in Northern Missouri, had made an important diversion of 
the enemy in favour of Gen. Price. Although surrounded by enemies, and 
within their reach from many points. Gen. Harris had secretly oi'ganized 
a force, and by the rapidity of his movements produced the impression 
that he was stronger than he really was ; the result of which was that he 
had diverted several thousand men from the support of Gen. Lyon, and held 
them north of the river until after the battle of Oak Hill, thus making an 
important contribution to the issue of that contest. On the 10th of Sep- 
tember, Gen. Harris crossed the Missouri at Artien Creek. Recruits in 
bodies of ten, fifty, and a hundred constantly joined him, and when he 
effected a junction with Gen. Price, he added nearly three thousand effec- 
tive men to a force already consisting of more than six thousand. 

Some weeks previous, Gen. Fremont had arrived to take chief com- 
mand of the "Western Department. He had reached St. Louis, and mili- 
tary preparations were immediately carried on with renewed vigour. He 
assumed his command with great ostentation ; and his displays of garish 
splendour in his camp were such that some of the Northern newspapers 
were provoked to say that he resembled more an Eastern satrap than an 
American commander. Put the most remarkable event with which he 
inaugurated his authority was a proclamation, issued at St. Louis, on the 
30th of August. In this remarkable fulmination of autliority he declared 
that, in his judgment, the public safety and the success of the Federal arms 
required " unity of purpose without let or hindrance to the prompt admin- 
istration of affairs ; " therefore he proclaimed martial law through the 
whole State of Missouri, and asserted that the lines of his army of occupa- 
tion extended from Leavenworth, by way of the posts of Jefferson City, 
Rolla, and Iron ton, to Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi ; all persona 
within these lines, taken with arms in their hands, were to be tried by 
court-martial, and shot if found guilty ; he furthermore proclaimed, that 
the property, real and personal, of persons who took up arms against the 
United States, or who should be proved to have taken part with their 



164 THE LOST CAUSE. 

euemies in tlie field, should be confiscated, and thei/i' slaves should h^ 
freemen. 

This proclamation was vastly pleasing to a large and rapidly-growing 
party in the North, who recognized the extinction of negro slavery in the 
South as an essential object of the war. It was an ingenious idea, too, to 
make of slavery a party-coloured crime — sinful in the " rebel," but blameless 
in the Union man. The brutality of the proclamation, too, was refreshing ; 
for there were already many in the North who believed that their fellow- 
countrymen should be shot, and this in the name of the Union, for the 
simple crime that as citizens of the State of Missouri they obeyed the 
orders of the lawful authority of their State. 

But the Government at Washington was not yet prepared for these 
lengths of the war ; and it is a curious commentary on the future of 
Mr. Lincoln's policy with respect to the extinction of slavery, that Fre- 
mont's proclamation was distinctly disavowed and instantly overruled 
by him. 

But while Fremont was thus indulging his political fanaticism, he was 
strangely inattentive to the course of military events in Missouri. Lexing- 
ton, upon which Gen. Price was now directing his march, was feebly de- 
fended. It was only when it was seriously threatened that Col. Mulligan 
moved up from Jefferson City with his Irish brigade, and found himself 
with an insufficient garrison, and but little time to strengthen his works, 
confronted and encompassed by an army of more than ten thousand men. 



THE SIEGE OF LEXINGTON. 

On the 12th of September, Gen. Price approached Lexington. In the 
midst of the straggling town there was a large brick building known as 
the College Building. Col. Mulligan had planned an earthwork ten feet 
high, with a ditch eight feet wide, enclosing the College, with a large area 
capable of holding a gariison of ten thousand men. As Price approached 
the town a sharp affair occurred with the enemy's outposts, and at one 
time a general engagement was threatened. Taking advantage of the 
smoke, Gen. Rains prepared to lead a column to the assault of the breast- 
works at an angle which was apparently weakly defended. But the 
movement was discovered by the enemy, who rallied in force to the threat- 
«ied point. Kneeling down to shelter themselves, with levelled muskets 
and fingers upon the triggers, the Federals were silent as death. The 
Missourians advanced at a rapid run. "When within a hundred yards of 
the breastworks, the smoke lifted, a line of fire flashed along the 
entrenchments, and five hundred muskets launched their bullets against 
tlie advancing ranks. But with a presence of mind inspired by their 



THE SIEGE OF LEXINGTON. 165 

liabits, the Missourians dropped at the flash, and, instantly rising, again 
rushed forward. Again they met a fire whicli was more destructive. 
Finding that a surprise was hopeless, and that the Federals were as- 
sembling a large part of their artillery at the threatened point, the 
column of attack was withdrawn. 

Discovering, at the close of the day, that his ammunition, the most 
of whicli had been left behind in the march from Springfield, was nearly 
exhausted, and that his men, most of whom had not eaten anything in 
thirty-six hours, required rest and food. General Price withdrew from 
the town and encamped. His ammunition wagons having been at last 
brought up, and large reinforcements having come in, he again moved 
into the town on the 18th, and commenced the final attack upon the 
enemy's works. 

Col. Mulligan bore himself with the bravery characteristic of an Irish- 
man, and worthy of a better cause. When summoned to surrender, he 
replied : '' If you want us, you must take us." The garrison had not 
sufficient supplies of water within their entrenchments, and were com- 
pelled to resort to the river, nearly half a mile distant, under the constant 
fire of skirmishers. Large bodies had to fight their way to the water, 
and bloody conflicts ensued. As a detachment of the Missouri troops, 
under command of Col. Rives, were passing down the bank of the river 
to capture a steamboat lying under the enemy's guns, a fire was opened 
upon him from a building known as Anderson's House, standing on th<6 
summit of the blufi', and designated as a hospital by the white flag over 
it. There wore in the building at the time twenty-four sick ; but it 
contained also a large body of armed soldiers. Indignant at the perfidy 
which directed this attack, several companies from Gen. Harris' and the 
fourth division rushed up the bank, leaped over every barrier, and speedily 
overpowered the garrison. The important position thus secured was 
within one hundred and twenty-five yards of the enemy's entrenchments. 

Early in the morning of the 19th September, the roar of cannon and 
rattle of musketry again resounded through the hills around the belea- 
guered camp. The garrison suffered much from thirst. The pressure 
of the assault was incessant and bloody. Cannon surrounded them on 
three sides, and, occupying positions of command, poured out constant 
torrents of shot, shell, stones, fj-agments of iron, — every missile that could 
•be found and used for battering and death. 

On the 20th, Gen, Price caused a number of bales of hemp to oe 
transported to the river heights, where movable breastworks were speedily 
constructed out of them. The demonstrations of the artillery, and par- 
ticularly the continued advance of the hempen breastworks, attracted the 
attention and excited the alarm of the enemy. Several daring attempts 
were made to drive back the assailants. At one time, in extreme despera- 



166 TUB LOST CAUSE. 

tion, a cavalry assault was made by the Illinois mounted men upon one of 
the Missouri batteries ; but the assailants were terribly cut up with grape 
and buckshot, and retreated in confusion to the entrenchments. 

Col. Mulligan had received two painful w^ounds. After having once 
ordered down a white flag which some of the " home guards," had dis- 
played, he, at last, convinced of the hopelessness of his situation, determined 
on a surrender. He did so, only after iifty-two hours of continuous fighting. 
Immediately Gen. Price issued an order, that the forces under Col. Mul- 
ligan, having stacked their arms, " were not to be insulted by word or act, 
for they had fought like brave men." Mulligan, having given up his 
sw^ord, had it immediately returned to him by Gen, Price, who said he 
" could not see a man of his valour without his sword." The brave cap- 
tive was afterwards treated with true chivalric courtesy by Gen. Price, 
who induced him and his wife to become his guests, and entertained them 
with all the hospitality at his command. 

The entire loss of the Missourians in this series of engagements was 
but twenty-five killed and seventy-two w^ounded. The enemy's loss was 
considerably larger, and, though never officially reported, was estimated 
by their own narratives as amounting to five hundred in killed and 
wounded. The visible fruits of the victory were considerable. The 
Missourians captured five colonels, a hundred and nineteen other com- 
missioned officers, and thirty-five hundred non-commissioned officers and 
privates, five cannon, two mortars, over three thousand muskets, rifles and 
carbines, about seven hundred and fifty horses, a quantity of ammunition, 
and more than one hundred thousand dollars worth of commissary stores. 
There was also recovered about $900,000 of coin of which the Lexington 
Bank had been robbed, in accordance with Fremont's instructions, which 
Gen. Price ordered to be immediately restored to its owners. 

The capture of Lexington and the bold and brilliant movements of the 
Missouri patriots in other parts of the State — among them the operations 
in Southeastern Missouri of the partisan JeJff. Thompson and his " Swamp 
Fox Brigade " — excited rage and alarm in the "Washington administration. 
Gen. Fremont, who was severely censured for not having reinforced Mul- 
ligan, hoped to recover his position by activity and success ; he put him- 
self at the head of the army, and advanced towards Jefferson City, sending 
back the promise that he would overwhelm Price. It was at this period 
that Gen. Price found his position one of the greatest emergency. He 
had received intelligence that the Confederate forces, under Gens. PiUow 
and Hardee, had been withdrawn from the southeastern portion of the 
State. Gen. McCulloch had retired to Arkansas. Gen. Price was left 
with the only forces in Missouri to confront an enemy sixty thousand 
strong ; he was almost entirely without ammunition : and he was beset 
with other difficulties and embarrassments. A large number of his men 



ABILITY OF GEN. rEICE. 167 

had volunteered in haste, and hied to the camps with hardly a change of 
clothir.g. Many were naturally anxious to return to their homes. The 
difficulty of maintaining a wagon train sufficient to support so large an 
army was seriously felt. Thus surrounded by circumstances of the most 
painful and unlooked-for misfortune, Gen. Price was compelled not only to 
make a retrograde movement, but, also, to disband a considerable portion 
of his forces. 

With his army thus dirainished. Gen. Price commenced liis retreat 
about the 2Yth of September. With Sturgis on the north side of the 
river, Lane on the west, and himself on the east, Fremont expected to cut 
off and captm-e the entire force of the Missourians. This Price adroitly 
prevented by sending out cavalry as if intending to attack each of the 
enemy separately, and so covering his retreat. This retreat was executed 
in a most admirable manner, and amidst numerous obstacles. The Osage 
river was crossed in two flat-bottomed boats, constructed for the occasion 
by the Missouri soldiers ; and then Price moved to Neosho, on the Indian 
frontier of the State. Here the Legislature had assembled, and here Price 
again formed a junction with McCuUoch, at the head of 5,000 men. It 
was at this time the State Legislature at length passed the Ordinance of 
Secession, and Gen. Price had the satisfaction of tiring a hundred guns to 
celebrate the event. 

From Neosho Price and McCulloch fell back to Cassvillo and Pineville, 
on the southern borders of the State. At Pineville, Price made prepara- 
tion to receive Fremont, determined not to abandon Missouri without a 
battle. But just at this juncture news came that Fremont had been 
superseded as commander of the Federal forces. His course had given 
great offence at Washington ; and Attorney-General Bates had declared 
that it would be " a crime " to keep him in command. It was said that 
his vanity had become so insolent that he paid no regard whatever to acts 
of Congress, the orders of his sujDcriours, the usages of the service, or the 
rights of individuals ; and that he was surrounded by a band of contractors, 
and, in partnership with them, plundered the public funds without mercy. 
On such persistent representations the order at Washington was at last 
given for his removal and the appointment of Gen. Hunter in his place. 

Fremont had obtained intimation that such an order was on the way 
from Washington. He took singular pains to prevent it from reaching 
him. He had two body-guards, one of whites and one of Indians. He 
gave strict orders that no one should be admitted through the inner lines 
surrounding his headquarters, except by his direct orders. Notwithstanding 
his precautions, one of the three military messengers sent from St. Louis, 
by address and stratagem succeeded in gaining admission, and, making hia 
way to Fremont's presence on the night of the 7th of November, delivered 
to him the fatal missive which concluded his career. 



16S THE LOST CAUSE. 

This event had the effect of demoralizing the Federal forces to such an 
extent that an immediate retreat was thought advisable by the acting officers 
in command. The degraded General showed symptoms of rebellion. The 
Dutch vare greatly attached to him ; signs of mutiny were shown by these 
adherents ; for a time open revolt was threatened ; but Fremont's subor- 
dinates, Sigel and Asboth, positively refused to sustain him, and the army 
was ordered to retreat from Springfield. The Federals accordingly lelt 
that town in the direction of RoUa, and were pursued by Gen. Price to 
Osceola. From Osceola, Gen. Price fell back to Springfield, to forage his 
army and obtain supplies. Both armies having thus drawn off, we may 
leave here for the present the history of the Missouri campaign. 

Notwithstanding the adverse termination of this campaign with respect 
to the occupation of Missouri, it had alreay accomplished much ; it had 
given an exhibition of spirit and resource without a parallel in equal cir- 
cumstances ; and it constitutes the most remarkable and brilliant episode 
of the war. It was a chapter of wonders. Price's array of ragged heroes, 
had marched over eight hundred miles ; it had scarcely passed a week 
without an engagement of some sort ; it was tied down to no particular 
line of operations, but fought tlie enemy wherever he could be found ; and 
it had provided itself with ordnance and equipments almost entirely from 
the prodigal stores of the Federals. The hero of Missouri started on his 
campaign without a dollar, without a wagon or team, without a cartridge, 
without a bayonet-gun. When he commenced his retreat, he had about 
eight thousand bayonet-guns, fifty pieces of cannon, four hundred tents, 
and many other articles needful in an army, for which his men were 
almost exclusively indebted to their own strong arms in battle. 

This campaign was little less than a puzzle to military critics. Price 
managed to subsist an army M-ithout governmental resources. He seldom 
complained of want of transportation. His men were never demoralized 
by hunger. They would go into the cornfield, shuck the corn, shell it, 
take it to the mill, and bring it into camp, ground into meal. Or, if they 
had no flour, they took the wheat from the stack, threshed it themselves, 
and asked the aid of the nearest miller to reduce it to flour. Price proved 
that such an army could go where they pleased in an agricultural coun- 
try. His men were always cheerful. They frequently, on the eve of an 
engagement, danced around their camp-fires with bare feet and in rag 
costumes, of which it was declared " Billy Barlow's dress at a circus 
would be decent in comparison." Price himself wore nothing on his 
shoulders but a brown-linen duster ; and this and his white hair streaming 
on the battle-field made him a singular figure. Despite the exposure and 
hardship of this campaign, the most remarkable fact remains to be 
recorded : that in its entire course not more than fifty men died from 
disease. 



WESTERN VIRGmiA CAMPAIGN. 169 

Such a record of courage, of expedient and of endurance, has no 
known parallel in the war. It settled forever the question of Missouri 
manhood. It did more than this : it proved that the spirit of the native 
and true population of Missouri was strongly Southern, and that it needed 
aothing but organization and opportunity for its triumph. 



THE WESTERN VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN. 

The campaign in Western Yirginia, which was mostly cotemporary 
with that of Missouri, and very similar to it in its discursive character, un- 
fortunately did not partake of its brilliancy. With but little compensa- 
tion, either in the prestige of arms, or in the fruits of single victories, it 
surrendered to the enemy a country of more capacity and grandeur than 
perhaps any other of equal limits on the American continent ; abounding 
in immense forests, possessed of almost fabulous mineral resources, ofi'ering 
to the manufacturer the vastest water-power in the world, and presenting 
in its deposits of coal and salt, fields of inexhaustible enterj)rise and wealth. 

In the month of June, Brigadier-General Wise of Virginia was sent in- 
to the Kanawha Yalley ; it being supposed that by his rare and character- 
istic enthusiasm he would be able to rally the people of this region to the 
support of the State. He established his headquarters at Chai-leston, and 
succeeded in raising a brigade of twenty-five hundred infantry, seven hun- 
dred cavalry and three batteries of artillery. With subsequent i-einforce- 
ments his command amounted to four thousand men. It was obvious enough 
that with this small force, his situation was extremely critical. The enemy 
had already landed considerable forces at Parkersburg and Point Pleasant 
on the Ohio River, and was rapidly using his superiour facilities for raising 
troops in the populous States of Ohio and Indiana, and his ample means 
of transportation by railroad through those States and by the navigation 
of the Ohio and Kanawha Pivers, to concentrate a large force in the lower 
part of the Kanawha Valley. 

After some desultory movements, and a brilliant affair on Scary Creek, 
in Putnam County, where Col. Patton with a small force repulsed three 
Federal regiments. Gen. Wise prepared to give battle to the Federal 
forces, which, under the command of Gen. Cox, had been largely increased, 
and which were steadily advancing up the Valley, both by land and 
water. But the conflict was not to occur. A more formidable danger, 
from a different direction, menaced the Confederates. The disaster at 
Rich Mountain — the surrender of Pegram's force, and the retreat north- 
ward of Garnett's army, had withdrawn all support from the right flank, 
and, indeed, from the rear of Gen. Wise. He was in danger of being cut off* 
in the rear by several roads from the northwest, striking the Kanawha road 



170 THE LOST CAUSE. 

at various points between Lewisburg and Gaulej Bridge. The danger 
seemed to him so pressing, that he fell back immediately with his entire 
force, first to Gauley Bridge and thence to Lewisburg, reaching the 
latter place about the 1st of August, and after a retreat which was neces- 
sarily much disordered, on account of his meagre means of transportation. 

Within a few weeks after Gen. Wise fell back to Lewisburg, the Con- 
federate cause in Western Yirginia received the aid of a very effective 
body of men. John B. Floyd, who had been at one time Governor of 
Yirginia, and afterwards Secretary of War under President Buchanan, 
was commissioned a brigadier-general in the Confederate army, and had 
succeeded in raising a command of three regiments of infantry and a bat- 
talion of cavalry. This force was intended for service in Western Virginia, 
and Gen. Floyd soon decided, with the approval of the War Department, 
that the defence of the Kanawha Yalley was the object of first importance. 
He accordingly advanced to the White Sulphur Springs, nine miles east 
of Lewisburg, and held conferences with Gen. Wise. An advance towards 
the Gauley was promptly determined on, but the two bodies, under their 
commanders, moved at difi'erent times, and with perfectly distinct organi- 
zations, though within supporting distance. 

Gen. Floyd moved first, and for some days skirmished vigorously with 
Cox's troops, which were in force at Gauley Bridge and in the neighbour- 
hood of the "Hawk's Nest," a picturesque and majestic monument of 
wooded rocks, rising a thousand feet from the river road, at a point ten 
miles below the mouth of the Gauley. Gen. Wise having come up, the 
joint Confederate forces now approached nearer the enemy, skirmishing 
with various success. But while thus occupied, it was ascertained that 
another foe threatened their flank. 

Col. Tyler, commanding the Seventh Ohio Regiment, of nearly thirteen 
hundred men, was approaching the Gauley River at Carnifax Ferry, 
about five miles south of Summerville, in Nicholas County, and twenty- 
four miles above Gauley Bridge. His movement was therefore on the 
right flank of the Confederates, and had he succeeded in crossing the 
river and reaching their rear, he would have cut their communications 
with Lewisburg. Gen. Floyd at once determined to cross the river at 
Carnifax Ferry and encounter this movement of the enemy. He at once 
put his brigade in motion, taking with him a part of Wise's cavalry ; that 
commander remaining with the larger body of his troops at Pickett's Mills 
in Fayette County, so as to hold the turnpike, and guard against any ag- 
gressive movement of Cox, which might have embarrassed that against 
Tyler. 

The enterprise of Gen. Floyd was thoroughly successful. Having 
crossed the Gauley, he, on the morning of the 26th of August, fell upon 
Tyler at a place called Cross Lanes ; defeated and dispersed his force ; and 



AFFAIK AT CE08S LANES. I7l 

inflicted upon liim a loss of about two hundred in killed, wounded, a/id 
prisoners. 

Af\er the affair of Cross Lanes, Gen. Floyd proceeded to strengthen his 
position on the Gauley. Owing to an unfortunate want of concert be- 
tween AV^ise and himself, these two Confederate forces in Western Virginia 
were separated by a deep and rapid river ; and Floyd himself was unable 
to attempt a movement against Cox. He was far from his depot of provi- 
sions in Lewisburg, and being unprovided with adequate transportation, it 
would have been rash to have ventured forward on the north of the river. 
Knowledge of this situation of affau's was not lost upon the enemy. 
Gen. Rosecrans — a name which was hereafter to become familiar on more 
important theatres of the war — commanded the Federal forces between 
Buckhannon and Cheat Mountain. He at once conceived the idea of over- 
whelming the Confederates on both sides of the Gauley, and accordingly 
moved rapidly down the road leading from Weston to Summerville, with 
at least nine thousand men and several heavy batteries of artillery. 

Gen. Floyd was in a bend of Gauley River, very near Carnifax Ferry. 
On the 10th of September, Rosecrans, by a rapid march of sixteen miles, 
threw his entire force about Floyd's entrenchments, and commenced a vig- 
orous attack. The force of Floyd's command did not exceed seventeen 
hundred and fifty men. But his flanks were well protected by precipices 
or cliffs heavily wooded ; and from three o'clock until nightfall his centre, 
protected by an imperfect earthwork, sustained an assault from an enemy 
live times his numbers, made with small arms, grape, and round-shot, from 
howitzers and rifled cannon. As the sun was sinking, Rosecrans ordered 
a final and desperate charge. His troops pressed rapidly forward to short 
musket range ; the Southern lines were wrapped in fire ; a thousand bul- 
lets darted into the adverse ranks, and for a few moments the carnage was 
appalling. . The Federals fell back, and returned no more to the assault. 
The ground was covered with hundreds of their dead and wounded. The 
Confederates had not lost a man killed and not more than twenty wounded. 

During the night. Gen. Floyd crossed the river by means of two ferry- 
boats and a hastily constructed bridge of logs. He had accomplished a 
brilliant success in the check and lesson he had already given the enemy ; 
and knowing Rosecrans' superiority of numbers, and fearing for his own 
connnunications in his rear, he determined to withdraw to Wise's camp, 
and unite the two commands. 

It appears that when Floyd had first learned of Rosecrans' advance, ho 
had despatched orders to Gen. Wise for reinforcements, and that he failed 
to procure them. He wrote to the War Department at Richmond that he 
could have beaten the enemy, if these reinforcements had come up when 
ordered ; that if he could have commanded the services of five thousand 
men, instead of eighteen hundred, which he had, he could have opened 



172 THE LOST CAUSE. 

the road directly into the Yalley of the Kanawha. He indicated the 
urgent necessity of shaping the command in that region of conntry so as to 
ensure unity of action, — the condition of success in all military operations. 

In a few days Rosecrans crossed the Gauley with his army, and as the 
force opposing them was superiour in numbers, Floyd and Wise fell back 
deliberately towards Sewell's Mountain. New differences now developed 
themselves between these two leaders, which disturbed that unity of action 
so much desired. After reaching Sewell's Mountain, Gen. Floyd held a 
council of his officers, and determined to fall back still further, to Meadow 
Bluff, eighteen miles west of Lewisburg. Gov. "Wise followed him onl}^ as 
far as the eastern slope of the mountain, where he proceeded to strengthen 
his position, which he named Camp "Defiance." 

At this pause in military operations in the Kanawha Valley, it will be 
convenient to note the events which had occurred further ^orth in this 
Western region of Virginia, and to observe the movements of the Confed- 
erate army there under the command of a man whose star was to be singu- 
larly obscured before it mounted the zenith of fame — Gen. Robert E. Lee. 

After the retreat of Gen. Garnett from Eich Mountain, and the death 
of that officer. Gen. Lee was appointed to succeed him, and, with as little 
delay as possible, repaired to the scene of operations. He took with him 
reinforcements, making his whole force, in conjunction with the remnant 
of Gen. Garnett's army, about sixteen thousand men. The roads in this 
part of the country were deep in mud and horrible with precipices. By 
patience and skill. Gen. Lee advanced with his army across the Alleghany 
range, and deliberately approached the enemy in Randolph County. 

Rosecrans was then the ranking officer of the Federal troops in North- 
western Virginia ; but Gen. Reynolds held the approaches to Beverly 
with a force estimated at from ten to twelve thousand men. The larger 
part of these were strongly entrenched at a point at the junction of 
Tygart's Valley River and Elk Run, w^hich post was called by the Federals 
" Elk Water." The remainder held the pass at the second summit of 
Cheat Mountain, on the best road from Staunton to Parkersburg. The 
mountain had three well-defined summits. The second presented the 
greatest advantages for fortification, and here the enemy had built a pow- 
erful fort or block-house in the elbow of the road, flanked by entrench- 
ments of earth and logs, protected by dense abattis on every side, and 
rendered inaccessible, in two directions, by the steep and rugged walls of 
the mountain. 

Having approached the enemy. Gen. Lee directed careful reconnois* 
sauces to be made of all his positions. Col. Rust, of the 3d Arkansas Regi- 
ment, made what afterwards proved to be a very imf)erfect reconnoissance of 
the enemy's position on Cheat Mountain, and reported that it was perfectly 
practicable to turn it and carry it by storm. Gen. Lee at once issued liia 



FAILURE AT CHEAT MOUNTAIN. 173 

orders for a united movement upon the forces of the enemy, both at Elk 
Water and on Cheat Mountain. After great labour and the endurance of 
severe hardships on the mountain spurs, where the weather was very cold, 
Gen. Lee succeeded in getting below the enemy at Elk Water, placing 
other portions of his forces on the spurs of the mountain immediately east 
and west of the enemy, and marching another portion of his troops down 
the river close to the enemy. The forces were thus arranged in position 
for making an attack upon the enemy at Elk Water, and remained there 
for some hours, waiting the signal from Col. Uust's attack on Cheat 
Mountain. 

That officer, with fifteen hundred troops, chiefly his Arkansas men, had 
'N^'- turned the Cheat Summit Fort, and was now in its rear. But he saw at 
^ once that his former reconnoissance had been deceptive. The fortified 
V post was literally unapproachable, by reason of thick abattis of felled trees, 
^ with branches and undergrowth densely interlaced, extending from the 
■^ block-house nearly half a mile down the rugged sides of the mountain. 
5? Col. Rust gave no signal for the advance, awaited by the forces at Elk 
\ Water ; he thought his enterprise hopeless, and withdrew his troops. 
iSj Gen. Lee, informed of tlie miscarriage of this part of his plan, abandoned 
^ the whole of it, and retired his command without any results whatever. 
^, The failure to dislodge the enemy from Cheat Mountain, and thus re 

^ lieve Northwestern Virginia, was a disappointment to the Southern public, 
V whose expectations had been greatly raised by vague rumours of Lee's 
(J strategy and plans. It was thought, too, that this distinguished com- 
mander might have realized some results of his well-matured plan, if, de- 
spite of the disconcert of Rust, he had risked an attack upon the enemy's 
position at Elk Water, which a portion of his forces had surrounded. But 
regrets were unavailing now ; danger was imminent in another quarter. 
Learning by couriers of the union of Rosecrans and Cox, and of their ad- 
vance upon Wise and Floyd, Gen, Lee decided at once to reinforce the 
Southern armies on the line of Lewisburg. He reached Gen. Floyd's 
camp at Meadow Blufi", on the 20tli of September, and after conferring 
with him for two days, joined Gen. Wise at Sewell Mountain, on the 22d. 
The experienced eye of Lee saw at once that Wise's position was very 
strong, and capable of aiTcsting a very heavy hostile force. He accord- 
ingly ordered forward his troops to the spot, and extended the defensive 
works already planned. 

Meanwhile Gen. Rosecrans, with fifteen thousand men, advanced, and 
took possession of the top of Big Sewell Mountain, skirmishing with the 
forward troops of the Wise brigade. Gen. Lee daily expected an attack, 
and was prepared for it. His force was now quite equal to that of the 
enemy. He was within sight of him ; each apparently awaiting an attack 
^ from the other. But the opportunity of a decisive battle in Western Yir- 



174 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ginia was again to be lost. On the night of the 6th of October, Rosecrans' 
troops moved to the rear in the dark, and the next morning, when the 
Confederates looked out from their camp, the whole of the threatening 
host that had confronted them for twelve days before, was gone. Gen. 
Lee made no attempt to pursue tliem. It was said that the mud, the 
swollen streams, and the reduced condition of his artillery horses mado 
pursuit impracticable. 

But one incident of success was to occur in a campaign of so many 
disappointments. When Gen. Lee withdrew from the Cheat Mountain 
region, he left Gen. IL R. Jackson with twenty-five hundred men to hold 
his position on the Greenbrier River. On the 3d of October, the enemy, 
about four thousand strong, attacked Jackson's position. A severe artil- 
lery engagement occurred, in ■which Jackson could not bring more than 
five pieces in action to return the fire of the enemy's eight. Masses of in- 
fantry were then thrown forward on Jackson's right and front, marching 
up the wooded sides of a hill that rose from the river. The location of the 
hill was such that they could not fire effectively until they crossed the 
river ; and as they attempted to form and deploy, in order to a charge, the 
12th Georgia Regiment fired several rapid volleys of musketry into them, 
which instantly checked their advance. At the same time, Shumaker's 
guns were directed to the point in the woods in which they were known 
to be crowded, and completed their discomfiture by playing upon them 
with destructive efiect. The regiments on the hill-side retreated rapidly, 
and soon the whole force of the enemy's infantrj^, artillery, and cavaliy 
Avas movino; in a confused mass to the rear. His loss in the engagement 
in killed and wounded was estimated at from two hundred and fifty to 
three hui^dred. The loss of the Confederates was ofiicially reported as six 
killed and thirty-one wounded. 

The approaching rigours of winter terminated the campaign in "Western 
Yirginia ; or it may be said to have been virtually abandoned by the 
Richmond authorities. Gen. Lee, who had shed such little blood in the 
campaign, and obtained such indifferent reputation in mountain warfare, 
was appointed to take charge of the coast defences of South Carolina and 
Georgia. Gen. Wise was ordered to report to Richmond, and was subse- 
quently assigned to important duty in ISTorth Carolina. Gen. Floyd 
lingered in the mountains ; had some desultory affairs with the enemy ; 
subsequently retired to Southwestern Virginia ; and from there was trans- 
ferred by the Government to the now imposing theatre of war in Tennessee 
and Kentucky. 

Thus ended the effort of the Confederate authorities to reclaim the 
larger portion of Western Virginia. We have put in a brief space its nar- 
rative of military events ; for, after all, it was a mere series of local adven- 
tures, compared with other operations of the war. 



CHAPTEE X. 

THB CONGRESS IN -WASHINGTON. — NEW DEVELOPMENT OF NORTHEEN POLICY. — LINCOLN'i 
POLITICAL DISCOVERT. — niS REMARKABLE MEASURES OF "WAR. — AN ERA OF DESPOTISM. 
^VIOLENT ACTS OF CONGRESS. — THE SEED OF ABOLITION. — SUSPENSION OF THE HABEAS 
CORPUS. — CURIOUS APOLOGY FOR IT. — MILITARY ARRESTS. — A "CONFIDENTIAL" DOCU- 
MENT FROM m'cLELLAN. — CURIOUS DISPOSITION OF THE NORTHERN PEOPLE TO SUR 
RENDER THEIE LIBERTIES. — CONSERVATISM OF THE CONFEDERATE CAUSE. — LINCOLN'S 
VIEW OF STATE "NEUTRALITY" IN THE WAR. — APPLICATION OF IT TO KENTUCKY. — 
THE ELECTIONS IN KENTUCKY. — THE CONFEDERATES ANTICIPATE THE FEDERAL OCCU- 
PATION OF KENTUCKY. — ZOLLICOFFER's COMMAUD. — POLk's COMMAND. — JUSTIFICATION 
OF THE CONFEDERATE OCCUPATION. — CLAIMS AND DESIGNS OF THE FEDERALS IN KEN- 
TUCKY. — folk's OCCUPATION OF COLUMBUS. — HIS PROFFER OF WITHDRAWAL. — ARRESTS 
IN KENTUCKY. — DESPOTIC AND BRUTAL LEGISLATION. — DISTINGUISHED REFUGEES. — BEEOK- 
INRIDGE's address. — EARLY MILITARY MOVEMENTS IN KENTUCKY. — ZOLLICOFFEr's OPERA- 
TIONS. — BUCKNEr's occupation of BOWLING GEEEN. — THE BATTLE OF BELMONT. — MOVE- 
MENT OF U. 8. GEANT. — GEN. PILLOW's COMMAND ENGAGED AT DISADVANTAGE. — THE 
CONFEDERATES DRIVEN BACK. — TIMELY REINFORCEMENTS. — SUDDEN CONVERSION OF A 
DEFEAT INTO A VICTORY. — RETREAT OF GRANT. — HIS OFFICIAL MISREPRESENTATION OF 
THE DAY. — PROSPECT OF THE WAR IN THE WEST. 

The new Federal Congress, pursuant to the summons of President 
Lincoln, met in Washington on the 4th of July. The event was the ocea- 
sion of a new development of the Northern policy, and a remarkable 
enlargement of the operations of the war. 

In his message, Mr. Lincoln announced a great political discovery. It 
was that all former statesmen of America had lived, and written, and 
labored under a great delusion : that the States, instead of having created 
the Union, were its creatures / that they obtained their sovereignty and 
independence from it, and never possessed either until the Convention of 
1787. This singular doctrine of consolidation was the natural preface to a 
series of measures to strengthen the Government, to enlarge the Executive 
power, and to conduct the war with new decision, and on a most unex- 
pected scale of magnitude. 

President Lincoln had already instituted certain remarkable measures 
of war. He had published his proclamation declaring the ports of the 



176 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Soutliern Confederacy in a state of blockade, and denouncing any mclesta- 
tion of Federal vessels on the high seas as jpiracy^ having reference to let- 
ters of marque issued by the Confederate authority. He had prohibited 
all commercial intercourse "with the States composing the new confedera- 
tion. And although he insisted on referring to the belligerent powers in 
the flippant and unimportant words of " persons engaged in disorderly 
proceedings," he had found it advisable, as early as the 3d of May, in 
addition to his first requisition for seventy-five thousand men to operate 
against these disorderly persons, to call for forty-odd thousand additional 
volunteers to enlist for the war, and eighteen thousand seamen, besides 
increasing the regular army by the addition of ten regiments. He now 
wrote to Congress : " It is recommended that you give the legal means for 
making this contest a short and a decisive one ; that you place at the 
control of the Government, for the work, at least four hundred thousand 
men, and four hundred millions of dollars." The recommendation was a 
singular commentary on the prospect that had been held out of subduing 
the Confederate power by three months' levies, before the Congress should 
meet in the month of July to determine the disposition of the conquered 
States and the fate of the leaders. But Congress was generous ; and, in 
excess of Mr. Lincoln's demand-, voted him five hundred thousand men, to 
serve for a period not exceeding three years. 

But the interest of the first Congress, under Mr. Lincoln's administra- 
tion, is not confined to its military legislation. It is a period from which 
we may trace a spirit that essentially tended to revolutionize the political 
system and ideas of the l^ortli itself, and to erect on the ruins of the 
Constitution a despotic authority, whose consequences ran all through the 
war. 

The first sessions of this Congress were signalized by a resolution 
refusing to consider any propositions but those looking to a continued and 
vigorous prosecution of the war, and confining all business to the military 
and naval operations of the Government ; by a general approval of the 
acts done by the President without constitutional authority, including his 
suspension of the habeas corpus', and by the initiation of a barbarous 
policy of confiscation in a biU declaring free whatever slaves were em- 
ployed in the service of " the rebellion, " thus evidently containing the 
seed of that thick crop of Abolition legislation which was to ensue. 

Mr. Lincoln had suspended the writ of habeas corpus without the consti- 
tutional concurrence of Congress, and under a claim of authority to arrest 
without process of law all persons " dangerous to the public safety." This 
remarkable usurpation was tolerated by the country. Indeed, it obtained 
many ingenious defences in Northern newspapers. It was declared that 
the privilege of habeas corpus was really in the interest of no one but 
quasi criminals ; and that what had been esteemed for centuries as the 




■-% - ly • 



expreaaiy for the Lost Cause Ir/E-A-ftllftri. 



m'cLELLAn's " CONFIDENTIAL " DOCUMENT. 177 

bulwark of personal liberty, was really a matter of no great concern to the 
general public. An apologist for Mr. Lincoln wrote : " In such times the 
people generally are willing, and are often compelled, to give up for a 
season a portion of their freedom to preserve the rest ; and fortunately, 
again, it is that portion of the people, for the most part, who like to live 
on the margin of disobedience to the laws, whose freedom is most in dan- 
ger. The rest are rarely in want of a habeas corjpusP 

This astounding and atrocious doctrine had already been put in violent 
practice in certain parts of the JJTorth. We have already referred to the 
military arrest of the municipal officers of Baltimore. It was but the 
beginning of a reign of terrour. There is place here for the following 
remarkable document, under the authority of which were arrested many 
leading members of the Legislature of Maryland : 

[confidential.] 

"Headquarters Army of the Potomac, 
" Washington, Sept. 12, 1S61. 

" General : After full consultation with the President, Secretaries of State, War, &c., 
it has been decided to effect the operation proposed for the 17th. Arrangements have 
been made to have a Government steamer at Annapolis to receive the prisoners and 
carry them to their destination. 

" Some four or five of the chief men in the affair are to be arrested to-day. "When 
they meet on the 17th, you will please have everything prepared to arrest the whole 
party, and be sure that none escape. 

" It is understood that you arrange with General Dix and Governor Seward the 
noAus operandi. It has been intimated to me that the meeting might take place on the 
14th ; please be prepared. I would be glad to have you advise me frequently of your 
arrangements in regard to this very important matter. 

" If it is successfully carried out, it will go far toward breaking the backbone of the 
rebellion. It would probably be well to have a special train quietly prepared to take 
prisoners to Annapolis. 

" I leave this exceedingly important affair to your tact and discretion — and have but 
one thing to impress upon you — the absolute necessity of secrecy and success. With the 
highest regard, I am, my dear General, your sincere friend, 

" Geoege B. MoClellah-, 

" Major-General U. 8. A." 

But the policy of arrests did not end with this singular violation of the 
freedom of a legislative body. Other citizens were taken. Military 
arrests were made in the dead hour of night. The most honourable and 
virtuous citizens were dragged from their beds, and confined in forts. 
Searches and seizures, the most rigorous and unwarrantable, were made 
without pretext of justification. Hopeless imprisonment was inflicted 
without accusation, without inquiry or investigation, and without the pros- 
pect of a trial. When, in the House of Representatives, at Washington, 
Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio moved a series of resolutions condemning these 
acts of despotic authority and intolerable espionage, including the seizure 
12 



178 THE LOST CAUSE. 

of despatches in tlie telegraph offices, they were unceremoniously laid on 
the table. 

There was an evident disposition of the Northern people to surrender 
their constitutional liberties to any government that would gratify theii 
political passions. A true account of the despotism of these times indi- 
cates, indeed, what little love of liberty there was in the North, and its 
low stage of sentimentalism on this subject ; for wherever it lias been 
observed in history that a nation has been willing to surrender liberty in 
an attempt at territorial ascendancy, it has always been the evidence of a 
coarse and materialistic character that serves well the ambitious designs of 
Despotism, and prefers a false greatness to the humbler realities of honour 
and happiness. In remarkable contrast to this tendency of the Northern 
people to submit to a subtraction of their liberties, and even to applaud 
it, while they imagined that their greed of resentment and lust of terri- 
tory were to be satisfied, were the declarations and spirit of the new gov- 
ernment erected in the South. There the body of civil liberties was 
undiminished and untouched. The muniments of constitutional law were 
not disturbed. In the midst of a war " waged not to destroy, but to pre- 
serve existing institutions," the South was recurring to the past rather than 
running into new and rash experiments, and exhibiting a spirit of Conserv- 
atism that the world had seldom observed in so vast a commotion. 

In his message of July, 1861, Mr. Lincoln had referred to an attempt 
meditated by States at a position of " neutrality " in the war. On this 
subject he wrote, with more than usual acuteness : 

" lu the Border States, so called — in fact, the Middle States — there are those who 
favor a policy which they call ' armed neutrality ; ' that is, an arming of these States to 
prevent the Union forces passing one way, or the Disunion the other, over their soil. 
This would be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it would be building an 
impassable wall along the line of separation — and yet, not quite an impassable one; for, 
under the guise of neutrality, it would tie the hands of the Union men, and freely pasa 
supplies from among them to the insurrectionists, which it could not do as an open 
enemy. At a stroke, it would take all the trouble off the hands of Secession, except only 
what proceeds from the external blockade. It would do for the Disunionists that which, 
of all things, they most desire — feed them well, and give them disunion without a strug- 
gle of their own. It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to maintain 
tlie Union ; and, while very many who favored it are, doubtless, loyal citizens, it is, nev- 
ertheless, very injurious in effect." 

This passage of Mr. Lincoln's message naturally introduces us to the 
remarkable part taken by the State of Kentucky at the period of hostilities 
and in the opening scenes of the war. Her Legislature had passed a reso- 
lution, to the effect that the State should remain neutral in the contest 
pending, and would not permit the troops of either party to pass over or 
occupy her soil for belligerent purposes. 



THE NEUTRALITY OF KENTUCKY. 179 

In assuming the part of a neutral, the attitude of Kentucky fell far 
below the hopes of the Confederate States ; but even that plea was to be 
used to disguise designs which meditated nothing short of an eventual and 
open declaration of common cause with the Northern States. An election 
ensued for members of her Legislature in the month of August. In this 
canvass the intriguers of the Federal Government were at work ; the war 
had fully opened ; paper money in abundance was beginning to circulate ; 
rich contracts for mules, hemp, and lumber, were scattered with lavish but 
discriminating hand, among the Union men of Kentucky ; and when the 
election came, a large majority of men were returned who had professed 
before the people their fidelity to the neutral faith, but who, in reality, 
were prepared to throw the whole power of the State, as far as they could 
wield it, in favor of Lincoln and liis war against the South. 

After the returns of this election were made, it soon became evident that 
the Federals intended to occupy Kentucky, and to use her roads and 
mountains for marching invading columns upon the Confederate States. 
It became. necessary to anticipate them. Brigadier-General Zollicofi'er, of 
Tennessee, on the 14:th of September, occupied the mountain passes at 
Cumberland, and the three long mountains in Harlan and Knox Counties, 
Kentucky, through which an invading column of Federals had been 
threatening for weeks to march from Hoskins' Cross-roads. And on the 3d 
of September Gen. Leonidas Polk advanced with part of his forces, and 
took possession of Hickman, Chalk Banks, and the town of Columbus, in 
Kentucky. 

The position of the Legislature of Kentucky, and Gov. Magoffin, that 
Gen. Polk's occupation of Columbus was an act of invasion of their State, 
and violated its neutrality, was absurd. The enemy had chosen to make 
his battle-ground there, and to erect there the signs of armed contest ; and 
the Confederates had, of course, the right to confront him on any line of 
operations he indicated. The Federal Government had disregarded the 
neutrality of Kentucky, and Mr. Lincoln had hooted at it ; her representa- 
tives in the Congress of the United States Iiad voted supplies of men and 
money to carry on the war against the Confederate States ; Federal cansps 
and depots of armies had been established in Kentucky ; military com- 
panies had been organized within her territory ; and at a rendezvous in 
Garrard County, known as Camp Dick Pobinson, several thousand trooj)S. 
among whom men from Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, were mus- 
tered with Kentuckians into the service of the United States, were pre- 
pared not only to put down revolt at home, but to carry out the designs of 
the Washington Government for the subjugation of the South. 

Nor was this all. Tlie Federal forces were preparing to take possession 
of Columbus and Paducah, regarding them as important positions ; and 
when Gen. Polk anticipated them in occupying the former place, it was 



180 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ouly ■when tlie enemy had constructed a military work on the Missouri 
shore, immediately opposite, and commanding Colnmbus, and evidently 
intended to cover the landing of troops for the seizure of the town. Fed- 
eral cannon had already been turned upon Columbus, and many of the 
inhabitants had fled in terrour from the indications of approaching 
hostilities. 

In no sense did the Confederates intend to conquer or coerce Kentucky, 
But it was well understood that the people of that State had been deceived 
into a mistaken security, were unarmed, and in danger of being subjugated 
by the Federal forces, while a majority of them, if perfectly free to indicate 
their choice, would, it was thought, have espoused the cause of the Confed- 
eracy. Proclamation was made, on the part of the Confederates, of the 
desire to respect the neutrality of Kentucky, and the intention to abide by 
the wishes of her people, as soon as they were free to express them. 

But Gen. Polk went even further than this. He offered to accede to 
the demand of Gov. Magoffin for the withdrawal of the Confederate troops 
from Kentucky, on condition that the State would agree that the troops of 
the Federal Government be withdrawn simultaneously, with a guaranty 
(which he would give reciprocally for the Confederate Government) that 
the Federal troops should not be allowed to enter or occupy any part of 
Kentucky in the future. This proposition was derided by the Federal 
partisans in Kentucky, and — as every proposition of equivalents in the war 
— was ridiculed in the Northern newspapers as a piece of " rebel " im- 
pertinence. 

It was not long before the period of " policy " was past in Kentucky, 
and Federal agents were making daily arrests of all persons suspected of 
entertaining designs or sentiments hostile to the government at Washing- 
ton. Many members of the State Legislature, true to the South, had 
vacated their offices and left their homes. What remained of this body 
enacted a law of pains and penalties, denouncing death, imprisonment, 
forfeitures and fines, against all who should oppose the Federal Govern- 
ment. 

Among those Kentuckians who, fortunately for themselves and for the 
cause which they afterwards served, escaped arrest, and came within the 
Confederate lines, were John C. Breckinridge, late Yice-President of the 
United States, Col. G. W. Johnson, a prominent citizen, Thomas B. Mon- 
roe, Sr., for about thirty years District Judge of the United States, 
Humphrey Marshall, ex-member of Congress, and a distinguished officer in 
the Mexican war, and Capt. John Morgan, afterwards the " Marion " of 
Kentucky, and one of the most famous cavalry commanders in the West. 
Messrs. Breckinridge and Marshall proceeded to Kichmond, and were 
appointed Brigadier-Generals in the Confederate service. 

On assuming his new position. Gen. Breckinridge published an address 



bkeckineidge's address. 18] 

to the people of Kentucky, some passages of wliicli are of historical inter- 
est, as a description of the times, from a pen which, for many yeai"s, had 
been able and conspicuons in every cause of truth. He wrote : 

" The Federal Government — the creature — has set itself above the creator. Tlie 
atrocious doctrine is announced by the President, and acted upon, that the States derive 
their power from the Federal Government, and may be suppressed on any pretence <;f 
military necessity. Everywhere the civil has given way to the military power. Tiie 
fortresses of the country are filled with victims seized without warrant of law, and igno- 
rant of the cause of tlieir imprisonment. The legiylntors of States and other public offi- 
cers are seized while in the discharge of their official duties, taken beyond the limits of 
their respective States, and imprisoned in the forts of the Federal Government. A sub- 
servient Congress ratifies the usurpations of the President, and proceeds to complete the 
destruction of the Constitution. History will declare that the annals of legislation do 
not contain laws so infamous as those enacted at the last session. They sweep away 
every vestige of public and personal liberty, while they confiscate the property of a nation 
containing ten millions of people. The great mass of the Northern people seem anxious 
to sunder every safeguard of freedom ; they eagerly ofter to the Government what no 
European monarcli would dare to demand. The President and his Generals are unable 
to pick up the liberties df the people as rajadly as they are tlirown at their feet. General 
Anderson, tlie military dictator of Kentucky, announces, in one of his proclamations, that 
he will arrest no one who does not act, write, or speak in opposition to Mr. Lincoln's 
Government. It would have completed the idea if he had added, or thinh in opposition 
to it. Look at the condition of our State under the rule of our new protectors. They 
have suppressed the freedom of speech and of the press. They seize people by military 
force on mere suspicion, and impose on them oaths unknown to the laws. Other citizens 
they imprison without warrant, and carry them out of the State, so that the writ of 
habeas corpus cannot reach them. Every day foreign armed bands are making seizures 
among the people. Hundreds of citizens, old and young, venerable magistrates, whose 
lives have been distinguished by the love of the people, have been compelled to fly from 
their homes and families, to escape imprisonment and exile at the hands of Northern and 
German soldiers under the orders of Mr. Lincoln and his military subordinates." 

The early military movements in Kentucky are to be considered as 
taking place along a line running through the interiour of the State, extend- 
ing from Columbus in the West to Prestonburg and Pikeville in the 
mountains on the Yii-ginia frontier. 

From his strong position at Cumberland Mountain, Gen, Zollicoffer 
prepared for cautious advances upon the enemy. On the 19th of Septem- 
ber, a portion of his command advanced to Barboursville, and dispersed a 
camp of fifteen hundred Federals. Gen, Zollicofi'er continued to advance, 
and early in October reached the town of London in Laurel County, break- 
ing up the enemy's camps in that region. 

Meanwhile, Brigadier-General Buckner, with a force of Kentucky vc'l- 
nnteers, advanced from the borders, and on the 18th of September entered 
the town of Bowling Green, in Wan-en County, eleven iniles south of 
Green Bivcr, and immediately on the line of approacli to Louisville, lie 
issued a proclamation to tlie people of Kentucky, stating that their Legis- 



182 THE LOST CAUSE. 

lature had been faithless to their will ; that instead of enforcing neutrality, 
thev had sought to make the State a fortress in which the armed forces of 
the United States might securely prepare to subjugate alike the people of 
Kentucky aud of the Southern States. He declared that the Confederate 
troops occupied Bowling Green as a defensive position, and that he renewed 
the pledge previously given by their commanders, to retire as soon as the 
Federal forces would in like manner withdraw. 

But the first serious collision of arms in Kentucky was to occur in the 
neighbourhood of the waters of the Ohio and the Tennessee ; and to that 
end of the line of operations we must now take the attention of the reader. 



THE BATTLE OF BELMONT. 

Gen. Polk had for some time been strengthening his position at Colum- 
bus, and had also occupied Belmont, a small village on the Missouri shore, 
so as to command both banks of the stream. 

With a view of surprising the small Confederate force on the west 
bank. Gen. U. S. Grant collected a fleet of large river steamboats, and 
enjbarking at night, steamed down the river unobserved. Within a few 
miles of Columbus and Belmont the river makes a sudden bend, and 
behind this bend Grant disembarked his forces, and began to advance 
towards Belmont, through the woods. When the morning of the 7th of 
November broke, the action commenced ; the first intimation of the eno- 
my's presence being a succession of rapid volleys. The troops were soon 
under arms, but the sudden surprise precluded all idea of a regular line or 
plan of battle. 

It appears that when the enemy was reported landing troops a few 
miles above, the garrison in Belmont consisted of only two regiments. 
Gen. Pillow, with four regiments, immediately crossed, and assumed com- 
mand. He had scarcely done so, when Grant's advance opened fire, and 
the fight soon became fierce and obstinate. The enemy made a desperate 
attempt to turn the left wing of the Confederates, but was defeated by the 
destructive fire of Beltzhoover's battery. This wing was severely taxed, 
as was also the right. Finding that they stood firm and unbroken, and, 
anxious for decisive action before reinforcements could reach Pillow, Grant 
repeatedly hurled his strongest force at the Confederate centre, which was 
in the open field. 

The centre evidently faltered under these heavy and repeated attacks. 
Pillow ordered a charge, and the first line of the enemy w^as driven upon 
their reserves. But ammunition now began to fail, and word came that 
the wings could not maintain their position if the centre gave in, as there 
was every reason to fear it would do. Again a charge was ordered, which 



THE BATTLE OF BELMONT. 183 

proved no less successful than the first. It was now found that the only 
battery of the Confederates had not a cartridge remaining, and most of the 
troops were similarly circumstanced ; there was no alternative but to fall 
back until reinforcements should arrive from Columbus. 

In moving back to the river bank, the Confederate line was more or 
less broken and disorganized ; and the enemy appeared to be master of the 
field. He was already in full possession of tlie Confederate camps, and 
was burning them. But at the critical moment three regiments, which 
had crossed the river from Columbus, were ordered to move up the river 
bank, through the woods, and get in the enemy's rear. The enemy had 
seen the boats crossing with reinforcements, and played on them with a 
heavy battery ; but the guns at Columbus replied, and in a few moments 
the enemy's pieces were silenced. Finding that Polk himself was crossing, 
and landing troops far up the river on his line of retreat, Grant immedi- 
ately began to fall back, but had not proceeded far when he encountered 
Louisianians, Mississippians, Tennesseans, and others, formed on his flanks, 
subjecting him to loss every moment, while the guns at Columbus contin- 
ued rapidly firing across the river, and from the high position of the 
works, telling with deadly effect. Under these circumstances resistance 
was hopeless, and Grant reluctantly ordered a retreat ; but while conduct- 
ing it, he was subjected to a terrific cross-fire from the Confederates, while 
Polk in person was pushing the rear vigorously, capturing prisoners and 
arms every yard of the road. The confusion, noise, and excitement were 
terrible, the Federals rapidly retreating to their boats, and the advance 
columns of their pursuers pouring deadly volleys into them. A defeat 
was suddenly and almost miraculously converted into a glorious triumpb 
of Confederate arms. 

In this obstinate conflict, in wliicli the Confederates fought by detach- 
ments, and always against superiour numbers, it was officially stated that 
their loss in killed, wounded, and missing, was 632, while that of the en©- 
my was claimed to have been treble in extent. He had been driven under 
a devouring fire, and even after he had reached the river, his crowded 
transports were assailed with the fire of thousands of deadly rifles. In 
Northern newspapers, Belmont was put down as " another Union victory." 
The style and effrontery of the falsehood was characteristic. The first part 
of the day, when Grant pushed the Confederates to the river, was glow- 
ingly described ; but the subsequent flank movement which converted his 
early success into a defeat and a rout, and was, indeed, the event of the 
day, was dismissed in the briefest and most indifferent terms. Grant 
wrote : " The rebels followed in the rear to our })lace of debarkation." 
Such was the method of Northern misrepresentation. It is remarkable 
that, by ingenious suppression, or by the rouged falsehood of official re- 
ports, the North claimed, after Manassas, every event of the war as a Fed- 



184: ^ THE LOST CAUSE. 

eral victory, unless where some political animosity brought out the details, 
or some personal rivalry extorted the truth. 

With the Confederate victory of Belmont, we leave for the present the 
story of military operations in the "West. "We shall soon recur to that 
theatre, to find there some of the largest and most important events of the 
war. We shall discover that the enemy, in fact, conceived a new plan of 
invasion of the South, through Kentucky and Tennessee, by means of 
amphibious expeditions, composed of gunboats and land forces ; and that a 
war which the Southern people supposed lingered on the Potomac, was 
suddenly transferred and opened with imposing scenes on the western 
waters. 



CHAPTER XI. 

WBS FICKLE PUBLIO OF THE NOETH. — GEN. SCOTT. — THE CLAMOUR FOB m'cLELLAN. — HIS 
EXALTATION IN THE NEW8PAPEE8. — THE THEATEIOAL AND SENSATIONAL MIND OF THE 
NORTH. — ADVANCE OF THE CONFEDERATES TOWARDS THE POTOMAC. — m'cLELLAN's 
DESIGNS. — THE CONFEDERATES FALL BACK TO CENTREVILLE. — THE BATTLE OF LEES- 
BURG. — m'cLELLAn's MOVEMENT ON THE CONFEDERATE LEFT. — EVANS' BRIGADE. — 
FORTUNATE CAPTURE OF A FEDERAL COURIER. — THE FEDERALS CROSS THE POTOMAC 
AND OCCUPY ball's BLUFF. — SPLENDID CHARGE OF THE CONFEDERATES. — DEATH OF 
OOL. BAKER. — THE ENEMY DRIVEN INTO THE RIVER. — AN APPALLING SPECTACLE OF 
DEATH. — MISREPRESENTATIONS IN WASHINGTON. — MORALE OF m'cLELLAN's ARMY. — THB 
AFFAIE AT DRANESVILLE. — DEFEAT OF STUART. — " STONEWALL " JACKSOn's NEW COM- 
MAND. — HIS EXPEDITION FROM WINCHESTER. — TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS OF HIS COMMAND. 
— HIS DEMONSTRATION AT BATH. — HIS MOVEMENT TO EOMNEY, AND RETURN TO WIN- 
CHESTER. — CLOSE OF THE FIRST YEAE's CAMPAIGN IN VIEGINIA. — NAVAL OPERATIONS 
IN 18G1. — THE enemy's IMMENSE ADVANTAGE IN HIS NAVY. — STATISTICS OF THE 
FEDEEAL NAVY. — IMPROVIDENCE OF THE CONFEDERATES IN COAST AND RIVER DE- 
FENCES. SECRETARY MALLOEY. — THE CONFEDERACY TO LOSE ALL HER SEAPORTS. — 

TWO NAVAL EXPEDITIONS DOWN THE CAROLINA COAST. — ENGAGEMENT AT HATTERA8 
INLET. — AN UNEQUAL COMBAT. — THE POET EOYAL EXPEDITION. — OAPTUEK OF POET 
EOYAL. — VALUE OF THIS FEDEEAL SUCCESS. — THE " TRENT" AFFAIE. — CAPTURE OF 
COMMISBIONEES MASON AND SLIDELL. — AN ENGLISH COMMANDEr's PROTEST. — GREAT 
INDIGNATION IN ENGLAND. — PREPARATIONS THERE FOR WAR. — CONCEIT AND EXULTA- 
TIONS OF THE NORTH. — TRIBUTES AND ATTENTIONS TO CAPT. WILKES. — CONCERN 
AMONG THE CONFEDERATES. — WHAT RICHMOND ORATORS SAID. — SEWARd's COEEE- 
8P0NDEN0E WITH THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. — HIS COLLAPSE. — THE LAST RESORT OP 
DEMAGOGUEISM. — DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE CONFEDERATES IN THE TERMINATION OF 
THE " TRENT " AFFAIE. — EAEL EUSSELL's DECLAEATION IN PARLIAMENT. — MR. GREG- 
OEY's EEPLY. THE TREATY OF PARIS AND THE FEDEEAL BLOCKADE. 

In the beginning of the war, General Winfield Scott had been entitled 
in Northern newspapers " the Greatest Captain of the Age." Aft'er tho 
disaster of Manassas the same newspapers derided him as an imbecile ; and 
in the meanest humiliation General Scott publicly announced himself an 
" old coward " for having yielded to popular clamour in figJiting tbo 
battle, and thus sought by the most infamous confession the mercy of men 
prompt to insult his fallen fortunes. 

The fickle course of _poj)ular applause in the North was to exalt a new 



186 THE LOST CAUSE. 

idol, and to designate a new victim. The clamonr was for yonug com- 
manders. Gen. George B. McClellan had been lifted into a sudden 
popularity by the indifferent affair of Rich Mountain. He was a graduate 
of West Point ; had been one of the Military Commission sent to the 
Crimea ; and just before the war had been employing his genius as super- 
intendent of a railroad. He was now to take command of the Federal 
forces on the line of the Potomac, and to find himself suddenly exalted ir. 
the newspapers to comparisons with Alexander, Csesar, Hannibal and 
Napoleon the Great. 

The volatile, superficial and theatrically-inclined mind of the North is, 
perhaps, in nothing more strikingly displayed than in its demonstrations 
towards its public men. Yankee fame has come to be one of the curiosi- 
ties of the world. Scott was " the Greatest Captain of the Age." But 
McClellan was " the Young Napoleon." The name of the new hero ap- 
peared on placards, on banners, and in newspaper headings. Reporters 
stretched their ears to catch the least word he uttered ; artists of illus- 
trated journals dogged his steps ; his eyes, hair, mouth, teeth, voice, man- 
ner and apparel were carefully described in newspaper articles. Every 
store of flattery and praise was exhausted upon a man who found himself 
famous by nothing more than the caprice of the multitude.* 

For months after the battle of Manassas an almost unbroken quiet ex- 
tended along the line of the Potomac. McClellan had tolerated tJie ad- 
vance of the Confederate lines to Munson's Hill, within a few miles of 
Alexandria ; and every attempt to draw him out into a general engage' 
ment proved unavailing. Northern politicians complained of his inactivity ; 

* There has been a curious Yankee affectation in the war. It is to discover in the infancy or 
early childhood of all their heroes something indicative of their future greatness, or of the designs 
of Providence towards tliem. Thus their famous cavalry commanders rode wild horses as soon as 
they could sit astraddle ; and their greatest commander in the latter periods of the war — Ulysses 
S. Grant — when an infant in arms desired a pistol to be fired by his ear, and exclaimed, frick 
again ! — thus giving a very early indication of his warlike disposition. The following, told of 
McClellan in a Washington newspaper, during the days of his popularity, is characteristic : — 

" The Infant Napoleon. — An incident which occurred in the city of Philadelphia in the winter 
of 1826-'7, is particularly worthy of record in our present crisis, inasmuch as it relates to the early 
history of one who fills a position commanding the attention and admiration of the world, and par- 
ticularly of our own country. I will premise by saying I was in Philadelphia in the winter 
spoken of, attending medical lectures under a distinguished surgeon, then a professor in one of the 
institutions of the city. A son was born to our professor, and the event scarcely transpired before 
the father announced it to his delighted pupils. Scales were instantly brought from a neighboring 
grocer. Into one dish he placed the babe, into the other all the weights. The beam was raised, 
but the child moved not ! The father, emptying his pockets, threw in his watch, coin, keys, knives 
and lancets, but to no purpose — the little hero could not be moved. He conquered every thing ! 
And at last, while adding more and more weight, the cord svpporting the beam gave way, and broke 
rather than the giant infant would yield ! The father was Dr. McClellan, and the son — General 
McClellan ! our young commander on the Potomac. The country will see a prophetic charm in 
this incident." 



THE BATTLE OF LEESBTJEG. 187 

the Confederates were immensely reassured by it ; but there is reason to 
suppose that McClellan's splendid army, that was constantly entertaining 
attention with parades and reviews, was performing a well-designed part, 
and that the goi'geous pageant on the Potomac was intended as a "veil to 
immense military preparations going on in other directions. 

The Confederate advance having failed to bring on a general battle, 
although it was almost daily invited by heavy skirmishing, and it being 
impossible without a chain of strong fortifications to hold the advanced 
line of Mason's and Munson's hills, or even the interiour one of Fairfax 
Court-house and its flanks, it was decided bj^Gene. Johnston and Beaure- 
gard, on the 15th of October, to withdraw the army to Centreville. At 
the dead of night it was put in motion, and in perfect silence, without the 
beat of a drum or the note of a bugle, the men marched out of their for- 
saken entrenchments, and took the road to Centreville. 



THE BATTLE OF LEESBUEG. 

The apparent retreat of the Confederates to Centreville encouraged 
McClellan to make an advance on the extreme left wing of their force. 
This enterprise brought on a conflict among the most sanguinary of the 
war, in view of the numbers engaged. The design of the Federal com- 
mander was to occupy the country covering the northern belt of Fairfax 
and Loudon counties ; and while a column moved towards Dranesville, he 
ordered Gen. Stone, comanding on the line of the Potomac, nearly oppo- 
site to Leesburg, to throw across the river a sufficient force to co-cperate 
with the lower movement. 

The Confederate force in and around Leesburg was about two thousand 
men. It was a brigade composed of three Mississippi regiments and the 
8th Virginia, comanded by Gen. Evans, whose name had been conspicu- 
ous on the field of Manassas. Before day broke on the 20th of Octobel*, 
the men were drawn up in line of battle, and Evans addressed tliem thusv; 
" Gentlemen, the enemy are approaching by the Di'anesville road, sixteen 
thousand strong, with twenty pieces of artillery. They want to cut off our 
retreat. Reinforcements can't arrive in time if they were sent. We must 
fitjIdP The little army was at once put in motion across Goose Creek 
and along the Dranesville road, anticipating a desperate engagement with 
the Federal column reported to be moving in that direction under the 
command of Gen. McCall. A few hours after sunrise a Federal courier 
was captured proceeding on his way with despatches from McCall to 
Stone. His papers betrayed sufficient to reveal that it was designed to 
draw the Confederates from Leesbui'g along the Dranesville road, while 
Stone crossed the river and occupied the town. 



188 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Gen. Stone commenced the passage of the river on the 20th of October. 
A force of five companies of Massachusetts troops, commanded by Col. 
Devins, effected a crossing at Edwards' Ferry, and, a few hours thereafter, 
Cob Baker, who took command of all the Federal forces on the Virginia 
side, having been ordered by Stone to push the Confederates from Lees- 
burg and hold the place, crossed the river at Conrad's Ferry, a little soutL 
of Harrison's Island, and on the direct road to Leesburg. Gen. Stono 
had ordered seven thousand five hundred men to co-operate in the move- 
ment. Baker's brigade, including the advanced companies under Devins, 
was two thousand three hundred strong, and he was raj)idly reinforced 
until nearly the entire number designated by Stone had been thrown 
across the river. 

Meanwhile Gen. Evans, who had taken a position at Goose Creek, 
awaited the approach of the enemy. The Federals had crossed the Poto- 
mac at different points, at Edwards' Ferry which was just above the mouth 
of Goose Creek, and at Conrad's Ferry, where a steep bank (Ball's 
Bluff) hung over the water. Finding that no advance from Edwards' 
Ferry was attempted. Gen. Evans ordered the 17th and 18th Mississippi 
regiments to move rapidly to the support of the 8th Yirginia and some 
Mississippi companies, which held the approaches to Leesburg, and had 
already become hotly engaged with the main body of the enemy advanc- 
ing from Ball's Bluff. 

" If the enemy won't come to us we must go to them," exclaimed 
Evans, as he put the two Mississippi regiments in motion, which began a 
race of two miles to turn the tide of battle. The Federals who had 
occupied Ball's Bluff had advanced towards the wooded plain between the 
river and Leesburg, and held a semicircular line of battle, supported by 
four howitzers. Evans' order was, " to make the business short." As 
the fire of musketry became hot and general — for the Confederates had no 
opportunity to use their artillery — the Federals gave way, and fell back 
towards the bluft'. Col. Baker urged his men to rally, and brought his dis- 
ordered lines to a momentary stand. Gen. Evans, seizing the critical mo- 
ment, ordered a charge. Virginians and Mississippians together rushed 
forward, making a resistless onset upon the Federal lines. A private 
sprang to the front, and advancing within eight feet of Col. Baker, fired 
five chambers of his revolver at him, piercing his head at the first shot, 
and striking him with nearly every ball. He fell dead. His terrified 
command gave way in utter rout, and fled towards the river. A portion, 
numbering several hundred men, attempted to make good their retreat by 
a flank movement to Edwards' Ferry, and were taken prisoners. But the 
bulk of the fugitives madly ran to the very verge of Ball's Blufi"; and now 
ensued a scene of unutterable horrour, as these men were driven over the 
bluff on to the bayonets of their friends, thirty feet below. 



THE BATTLE OF LEESBUEG. 189 

Such slaughter, sucli havoc, such mangling of living men was scarcely 
ever seen before. A whole army was retreating, tumbling, rolling, leap- 
ing down the steep heights. Hundreds plunged into the rapid current ; 
many were shot in the act of swimming ; and others were drowned in the 
water, choked with the wounded and dead. Large flats had been used to 
bring over reinforcements. They now attempted to return with the 
wounded ; but such was the consternation among the troops that large 
numbers rushed on board, trampling upon the bleeding men until they all 
Bank together, amid frightful screams. There were men in that agonized 
mass of fugitives who had never seen the field of battle. They had been 
sent over while the contest was in progress ; they had climbed the mud 
of the bluff, expecting to find before them a scene of victory. But before 
tliera glared a victorious and vengeful foe ; and behind them rolled the 
deej) river. All was consternation and dismay. A thousand men ran iip 
and down the banks. Two Massachusetts companies had the presence of 
mind to display a white flag and surrender. Others rushed wildly into the 
stream ; and the shrieks of the wounded and drowning mingled with the 
shouts of the victors and the rattle of musketry. 

The results of the terrible disaster of Leesburg were studiously sup- 
pressed by the Washington authorities. Indeed, they had the hardihood 
to claim an advantage ; representing that the movement towards Leesburg 
was merely a " reconnoissance," and was, in the main, " gallant " and 
" successful." But the Federal Congress happened to be in session at the 
time ; and the opposition party brought out the stark and horrible truth 
of the affair. It was ascertained that the Federal loss was not less than 
500 killed and drowned, 800 wounded, and about the same number of 
prisoners, making a total exceeding two thousand. The loss of the Con- 
ederates was only one hundred and fifty-three in killed and wounded. 
Evans' little command had defeated an army, probably three times its 
strength, and had inflicted upon it a loss greater in number than the whole 
Confederate force engaged. 

After the lesson administered at Leesburg, McClellan for some months 
attempted nothing but some foraging expeditions ; but he was constantly 
busy with the organization and morale of his army ; and the material 
which was raw at Manassas was rapidly improving in discipline, stanch- 
ness and soldierly qualities. On the 20th of December occurred an affair, 
which was more creditable to the Federals than any that had yet taken 
place in the region of the Potomac, and constituted McClellan's first suc- 
cess since the engagement of Rich Mountain. 

On the day named Gen. J. E. B. Stuart with a large foraging force, 
consisting of about twenty-five hundred men, fell in with the enemy near 
Dranesville. The Federals were in superiour force ; Gen. Ord's brigade, 
which was also marching to the same neighbourhood for forage, being 



190 THE LOST CAUSE. 

thirty-five linndi-ed strong, while two other brigades were in supporting 
distance. A rocket, shot up by the enemy, gave to the Confederates the 
first intimation of their presence. To give his wagon-train time to retreat 
in Bafety, Gen. Stuart prepared for battle. He was exposed to a very 
Bcvere cannonade from the enemy ; and finding his men contending at 
gerious disadvantage with an enemy greatly outnumbering tliem, and 
almost concealed in ambush, he, after a desultory engagement, drew ofl' his 
forces, and fell back two miles. The enemy did not jnirsue. The Con- 
federate loss in killed and wounded was about two hundred. 

The aff"air of Dranesville was the last conflict of arms of any note that 
occurred near the Potomac in the first winter of the war. But within this 
period, we must remark an expedition, conducted by " Stonewall " Jack- 
son, M'hich was a most extraordinary enterprise, and was attended by such 
hardships and suft'erings as made it a story of terrible interest and fearful 
romance. 

In September, Jackson had been made a Major-General, and in the 
early part of October he was assigned to the command of the Confederate 
forces in and around Winchester. About this time the famous Col. Turner 
Ashby, with his OM'n regiment and other cavalry detachments, making a 
total of some twelve hundred horse, was watching the river-front from 
Harpei''s Ferry to Eomney. In December the enemy were strongly posted 
at Eomney and Bath southwards ; and Banks, with his whole army being 
north of the Potomac, it was evident that some great movement was in 
contemplation, which prudence demanded should be watched by a strong 
force. 

A large part of Gen. Loring's command, after a march of two hundred 
and sixty miles, joined Gen. Jackson at Winchester. He was now at the 
head of about nine thousand men ; and on the first day of January, 1862, 
with a portion of his force he marched from Winchester. 

It was the object of Jackson to surprise the Federals stationed at Bath, 
otherwise known as Berkeley Springs. Amid the snow, sleet, rain and ice 
of the most severe days of the winter he commenced his march. He had to 
travel over fifty miles of the roughest country in the world, and he was 
obliged to take unfrequented roads to keep his movement secret. Pene- 
trating the mountains on roads winding along their sides, and through 
their rugged defiles, exposed to sleet and hail in mid- winter, and endur- 
ing the bitterest cold, the march was one of almost indescribable suftering 
and horrour. The men were without tents. The roads were covered with 
ice two inches thick, and glazed over by the sleet, so that neither man nor 
horse could keep his feet except by great care. Horses had their knees 
and muzzles terribly injured and streaming with blood. Occasionally, 
horsemen, infantry and wagons would slip over an embankment ; and 
men crippled, or filled with bniises and pains, laid down by the wayside 



i 



'• STONEWALL " JACKSON AT KOMNEY. 191 

to die, or staggered on in the terrible march. Many were bootless, hatless, 
and ragged. They were not allowed to kindle fires, being within a few 
miles of the enemy's posts ; and their most comfortable sleep was under 
stick arbours packed with snow. 

Amid the sharp distresses of this march the command struggled on 
with patient courage, and almost superhuman spirit. On arriving at 
Bath, they found the Federals had retreated to the Potomac, and had 
waded the river on one of the coldest days of winter. 

Having rested two or three days in Bath, Jackson made daily demon- 
strations at the river to induce the belief that his command was the ad- 
vance of a large force about to cross into Maryland. The demonstration 
succeeded even beyond his expectations. The Federal troops in and 
around Bomney amounted to eleven thousand men, under command of 
Gen. Shields. This officer felt so certain that Jackson was bent on cross- 
ing the Potomac, that, though forty miles above, he transferred his whole 
command to the north bank to dispute the supposed passage. As soon as 
Jackson was informed of this, he marched up the south bank to Bomney, 
surprised and captured many of the enemy, and destroyed what he could 
not carry away of Shields' immense stores, amounting to some half a mil- 
lion of dollars. Leaving a small force in Bomney, Jackson returned with 
his army to Winchester. The success of his expedition was complete ; 
but it had been terribly purchased, for hundreds of his brave men had sunk 
nnder the exposure of the march, or were long on the sick-list from its 
effects. 

With this movement closed the campaign of the winter in Yirginia. 
The armies of Johnston and Beauregard, at Centreville and Manassas, of 
linger, at Norfolk, of Magruder on the Peninsula, of Jackson at Win- 
chester, and the bodies of troops from Evansport to Acquia on the Poto- 
mac, in the Alleghany Mountains and around Bichmond, rested for a 
season in their winter quarters ; and fields of Virginia soon to run red with 
blood, were now covered with mantles of snow and ice. 



NAVAL OPEEATIONS IN 1861. 

The Federals had one immense and peculiar advantage in the war ; 
and they were prompt to use it. The superiourity which a large navy 
gave them may be estimated when we reflect that the sea-coast of the 
Confederacy stretched in a continuous line of eighteen hundred miles ; that 
along this were scattered sea-ports, many of them without the protection 
of the feeblest battery ; and that the Mississippi, with its tributaries was 
an inland sea, which gave access to the enemy almost as freely as the Gulf 
of Mexico. 



192 THE LOST CAUSE. 

At the opening of the war, President Lincoln found under his com 
mand a navy of ninety ships of war, carrying eighteen hundred and nine 
guns. In little more than a year from that time the Federal navy em- 
braced three hundred and eighty-six ships and steamers, carrying three 
thousand and twenty-seven guns. Keels were laid not only in the Eastern 
ship-yards, but on the Mississippi and Ohio Elvers ; iron armour was pre- 
pared ; mortar ketches were built ; the founderies and shops worked day 
and night upon engines, plates, and guns. 

While this wonderful energy was being displayed by the North in 
preparations to operate against our sea-coast, and by fleets of gunboats on 
the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries, to drive our armies out of Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee, the Confederate Government showed a singular 
apathy with respect to any work of defence. The Confederate Congress 
had made large appropriations for the construction of gunboats on the 
Mississippi waters ; there was the best navy-yard on the continent oppo- 
site Norfolk ; there were valuable armouries with their machinery at Rich- 
mond ; and although the Confederate Government was very far from 
competing with the naval resources of the enemy, yet there is no doubt, 
with the means and appliances at hand, it might have created a consider- 
able fleet. In no respect was the improvidence of this Government more 
forcibly illustrated than in the administration of its naval affairs ; or its 
unfortunate choice of ministers more signally displayed than in the selection 
as Secretary of the Navy of Mr. Mallory of Florida, a notoriously weak 
man, who was slow and blundering in his ofiice, and a butt in Congress 
for his ignorance of the river geography of the country. 

The consequences of the defenceless and exposed condition of the Con- 
federate sea-coast were soon to be realized ; and many intelligent men 
already took it as a foregone conclusion, that in the progress of the war the 
Confederacy would lose not only all her sea-ports, but every fort and bat- 
tery to which the floating guns of the enemy could get access. 

In the year 1861, two naval expeditions were sent down the Carolina 
coast ; and their results gave serious indications of what was to be ex- 
pected from this arm of the enemy's service on the slight fortifications of 
our ocean frontier. The first of these expeditions was designed against 
Ilatteras Inlet. To reduce two extemporized works there, mounting alto- 
gether fifteen guns, the enemy, with his usual prodigality of preparation 
and care to ensure victory, sent an enormous sea armament, carrying one 
hundred heavy guns, and a naval and military force numbering not less 
than three thousand men. The fleet was under the command of Commo- 
dore Stringham, while Maj.-Gen. Butler, of Massachusetts, commanded the 
force intended to operate on land. On the 26th of August the expedition 
sailed from Fortress Monroe, arriving off Hatteras on the 28th. Three 
hundred and fifteen men, with a twelve-pound rifled gun, and twelve- 



THE POET EOTAL EXPEDITION. 19S 

pound howitzer, were landed safely, but iu attempting to land more, two 
gunboats were swamped in tbe surf. In the mean time the fleet opened 
a tremendous bombardment upon one of the Confederate works. Fo)-t 
Clark. The ships, secure in their distance, and formidable b}^ their long- 
range guns, kept up a terrific fire, wdiich rained nine and eleven inch shells 
upon the fort, at the rate of seven in a minute, shattering to pieces the 
wooden structures exposed, killing and wounding a few of the men, and 
cutting down the flag-staif from Avhich floated the Confederate ensign. 
Finding the \vork untenable, it was decided by Commodore Barron, the 
Confederate oflicer in command, to retire to Fort Hatteras. 

At half-past eight o'clock the next morning, the Federal fleet steamed 
in from the ocean, and approaching within a mile and a quarter of Fort 
Hatteras, rene\ved the bombardment. The unequal combat continued for 
some hours. Assaulted by nearly a hundred heavy cannon, the fort was 
unable to reach effectively with its feeble thirty-two jjounders, the ships 
which lay at a safe distance, pouring from their ten-inch rifle jjivot guns a 
Btorin of shells upon the bomb-proofs and batteries. About noon, the fort 
surrendered. The loss of the Confederates was ten killed, thirteen 
wounded, and six hundred and sixty-five prisoners. The Federals had five 
men wounded. 

But the Federals were to obtain a much more important success at a 
point on the coast further south. In the latter part of October a great 
fieet of war-ships and transports began to arrive at Old Point, and in a 
few days they were ready for their departure. So formidable an arma- 
ment had never before assembled in the waters of America. The naval 
force was under the command of Capt. Dupont, flag-oflicer of the South 
Atlantic Blockading Squadron ; it consisted of fifteen war-steamers ; the 
land force was embarked in thirty steam vessels and six sailing ships, 
and was under the command of Gen. T. W. Sherman. The whole force 
fell very little below twenty-five thousand men. 

On the 3d of November the fleet was descried approaching the south- 
ern coast of South Carolina ; and then for the first time it became appa- 
rent that the point they sought was Port Poyal harbour. To defend the 
harbour and approaches to Beaufort, the Confederates had erected two 
sand forts — one at Hilton Head, called Fort "Walker, and the other at Bay 
Point, called Fort Beauregard. The first had sixteen guns mounted, most 
of them thirty-two pounders. Fort Beauregard mounted eight guns, none 
of the heaviest calibre. The garrisons and forces in the vicinity, number- 
ing about three thousand men, were under the command of Gen. Drayton. 

Having carefully reconnoitred the position and strength of the forts, a 

bombardment was opened on Fort Walker in the morning of the Tth of 

November. The fleet steamed forward, delivering its broadsides with 

neageless violence, then turning in a sharp elliptic, it steamed back in the 

13 



194 THE LOST CAUSE. 

same order, so as to fire the other broadside at Fort "Walker, and load in 
time to open on Fort Beauregard on getting within range. This manceuvre 
doubtless disturbed the aim of the artillerists in the forts ; they fired 
wildly and with but little eflect. The dense masses of smoke which the 
wind drove clear of the ships, and packed against the land batteries, ob- 
structed their aim, and afi'orded only occasional views of the enemy through 
the lifting cloud. After sustaining a bombardment of about four hours, 
the forts surrendered. The condition of Fort "Walker, at this time, accord- 
ing to the oflicial report of Gen. Drayton, was " all but three of the guns 
on the water front disabled, and only five hundred pounds of powder in the 
magazine." The garrisons and the men outside the forts retreated across 
the plain separating them from the woods. The Federal loss in the en- 
gagement was eight killed and twenty-three wounded. The Confederates 
lost about one hundred in killed and wounded, all their cannon, a number 
of small arms, and all the stores collected in and around the forts. 

The capture of Port Royal was an important Federal success. It gave 
to the enemy a point for his squadrons to find shelter, and a convenient 
naval depot. It gave him also a foothold in the region of the Sea-Islands 
cotton, and afforded him a remarkable theatre for his anti-slavery experi- 
ments. The Beaufort district, commanded now by the enemy's position, 
was one of the richest and most thickly settled of the State. It contained 
about fifteen hundred square miles, and produced, annually, fifty millions 
of pounds of rice, and fourteen thousand bales of cotton, and held a popu- 
lation of nearly forty thousand, of whom more than thirty thousand were 
slaves. 

In the month of November, 1861, there was to occur a naval exploit of 
the enemy, of little prowess, but of such importance that it was to draw 
off public attention from the largest operations of the war, and fix it unani- 
mously upon the issues of a single incident. 



THE " TKENT " AFFAIR. 

On the 8th of November, Capt. Wilkes, of the United States steam 
sloop-of-war San Jacinto, overhauled the English mail steamer Trent in the 
Bahama Channel, and demanded the surrender of the Confederate emis- 
saries, Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who were passengers on board that ves- 
sel, and were proceeding with their secretaries on a mission representing the 
interests of the Confederacy at the courts of England and France. The San 
Jacinto had fired a shot across the bows of the mail steamer to bring her 
to, and as she did not stop for that, had fired a shell which burst close by 
her. The unarmed vessel was boarded by a party of marines under com- 
mand of Lieut. Fairfax, who demanded the persons of the commissioners 



THE TRENT AFFAIR. 1Q5 

and tlieir secretaries ; and on their claiming the protection of the Britic;Ji 
flag, and refusing to leave it unless by actual physical force, hands were laid 
0*1 Mr. Mason, Lieut. Fairfax and another officer taking him by the colhu 
of the coat on each side, and, the three other gentlemen following, the 
whole party was thus transferred from the decks of the Trent. As this 
Bceue was taJving place, Commander Williams, of the British Navy, who 
was in charge of the English mails on board the Trent, said : " In this ship 
I am the rej^resentative of Her Majesty's Government, and I call upon the 
officers of the ship and passengers generally, to mark my words, when in 
the name of the British Government, and in distinct language, I denounce 
this as an illegal act, an act in violation of international law ; an act indeed 
of wanton piracy, which, had we the means of defence, you would not 
dare to attempt." 

The news of this remarkable outrage was received in England with a 
storm of popular indignation. The very day it reached Liverpool, a public 
meeting was held, earnestly calling upon the Government to assert the 
dignity of the British flag, and demand prompt reparation for the outrage. 
This appeal went up from all classes and parties of the people. The 
British Government exhibited a determined sentiment and a serious concern 
in the matter. The Earl of Derby, who had been consulted by the Govern- 
ment, approved the resentful demand which it proposed to make upon the 
United States, and suggested that ship-owners should instruct the captains 
of outward-bound vessels to signalize any English vessels, that war with 
America was probable. The Liverpool underwriters approved the sugges- 
tion. The British Government made actual preparations for war. Rein- 
forcements were sent to Canada, together with munitions of war for the 
few fortifications England possessed in that colony. 

Meanwhile the North was revelling in what it supposed the cheap glory 
of the Trent afiair, and making an exhibition of vanity and insolence con- 
cerning it, curious even among the usual exaggerations of that people. 
The act of Capt. Wilkes was not only approved by the Federal Secretary 
of the Navy ; it was extravagantly applauded by him. He accumulated 
words of praise, and declared that it had been marked by " intelligence, 
ability, decision, and firmness." The man who had made himself a hero 
in a proceeding in which he encoimtered no peril, received the public and 
official thanks of the Congress sitting at Washington. The Northern prees 
and people appeared to be almost insane over the wonderful exploit. The 
city of New York ofiered Capt. Wilkes the hospitality of the city. Boston 
gave him a festival. Gov. Andi-ew of Massachusetts declared that the act 
of taking four unarmed men from an unarmed vessel was " one of the most 
illustrious services that had rendered the war memorable," and exulted in 
the idea that Capt. Wilkes had " fired his shot across the bows of the ship 
that bore the English lion at its head," forgetting that the ship bore no 



196 THE LOST CAUSE. 

guns to reply to a courage so adventurous. Tlie New York Times wrote 
in this strain : " There is no drawback to our jubilation. The universal 
Yankee nation is getting decidedly awake. As for Capt. Wilkes and his 
command, let the handsome thing be done. Consecrate another Fourtli 
of July to him ; load him down with services of plate, and swords of the 
cunningest and costliest art. Let us encourage the happy inspiration that 
achieved such a victory." 

But while the " universal Yankee nation " was thus astir, and in a rage 
of vanity, the South watched the progress of the Trent question with a keen 
and eager anxiety. It was naturally supposed, looking at the determina- 
tion of England on the one side and the unbounded enthusiasm in the 
Northern States in maintaining their side of the question, that war would 
ensue between the parties. It was already imagined in the South that 
such a war would break the naval power of tlie North, distract her means, 
and easily confer independence on the Southern Confederacy. There were 
orators in Richmond who already declared that the key of the blockade had 
been lost in the trough of the Atlantic. If the North stood to the issue, the 
prospect was clear. Gov. Letcher of Yirginia addressed a public meeting 
in Yirginia, and, in characteristic language, declared that he prayed 
nightly that in this matter, " Lincoln's backbone might not give way.' 
The one condition of war between England and the North, was that the 
latter would keep its position, and sustain the high tone with which it had 
avowed the act of Capt. Wilkes. 

But this condition was to fail suddenly, signally ; and the whole world 
was to be amused by a diplomatic collapse, such as is scarcely to be found 
in the records of modern times. When the arrest of Messrs. Mason and 
Slidell was first made known at Washington, Secretary Seward had writ- 
ten to the Federal minister in London, advising him to decline any ex- 
planations, and suggesting that the grounds taken by the British Govern- 
ment should first be made known, and the argument commence with it. 
But the British Government entered into no discussion ; it disdained the 
argument of any law question in the matter ; and with singular dignity 
made the naked and imperative demand for the surrender of the commis- 
sioners and their secretaries. Mr. Seward wrote back a letter, which must 
ever remain a curiosity in diplomacy. He volunteered the argument for 
the surrender of the parties ; he promised that they should be " cheer- 
fully " liberated ; he declared that he did it in accordance with " the most 
cherished principles " of American statesmanship ; but in the close of this 
remarkable letter he could not resist the last resort of demagogueism in 
mentioning the captured commissioners, who had for weeks been paraded 
as equal to the fruits of a victory in the field, as persons of no importance, 
and saying : " If the safety of this Union required the detention of the 
captured persons, it would be the right and duty of this Government to 



THE TRENT AFFAIR. 197 

detain tliem.'' If tliere was aiiytliing wanting to complete the sliame of 
this collapse, it was the shallow show of alacrity at concession, and the 
attempt to substitute a sense of justice for what all men of common diS' 
cernment knew was the alarm of cowardice. 

The concession of Mr. Seward was a blow to the hopes of the Southern 
people. The contemplation of the spectacle of their enemy's humiliation 
in it was but little compensation for their disappointment of a European 
complication in the war.* Indeed, the conclusion of the Trent aflair gave 
a sharp check to the long cherished imagination of the interference of 
England in the war, at least to the extent of lier disputing the blockade, 
whicli had begun to tell on the war-power and general condition of the 
Confederacy. The Trent correspondence was followed by declarations, on 
the Government side in the British Parliament, too plain to be mistaken. 
In the early part of February, 1863, Earl Russell had declared that the 
blockade of the American ports had been effective from the 15th of Au- 
gust, in the face of the facts that the despatches of Mr. Bunch, the English 
consul at Chai-leston, said that it was not so ; and that authentic accounts 
and letters of merchants showed that any ships, leaving for the South, 
could be insured by a premium of seven and a half to fifteen per cent. 
But in the House of Commons, Mr. Gregory disputed the minister's state- 
ment, mentioned the evidence we have referred to, and asserted that Eng- 
land's non-observation of the Treaty of Paris was a deception for the Con- 
federate States, and an ambuscade for the interests of commerce through- 
out the world. 

* The Richmond Examiner had the following to say of the attitude of the enemy in the matter : 
" Never, since the humiliation of the Doge and Senate of Genoa before the footstool of Louis XIV., 
has any nation consented to a degradation so deep. If Lincoln and Seward intended to give them 
up at a menace, why, their people will ask, did they ever capture the ambassadours ? Why the ex- 
ultant hurrah over the event, that went up from nineteen millions of throats ? Why the glorification 
of Wilkes ? Why the cowardly insults to two unarmed gentlemen, their close imprisonment, and 
the bloodthirsty movements of Congress in their regard ? But, most of all, why did the Government 
of Lincoln indulge a full Cabinet with an unanimous resolution that, under no circumstances, should 
the United States surrender Messrs. Slidell and Mason ? Why did they encourage the popular senti- 
ment to a similar position ? The United States Government and people swore the great oath to 
stand on the ground they had taken ; the American eagle was brought out ; he screeched his loudest 
Bcrcech of defiance — then 

♦ Dropt like a craven cock his conquered wing ' 

ftt the nrst growl of the lion. This is the attitude of the enemy." 



CHAPTER XII. 

eKNEEAL OHAEAOTEE OF THE MILITAEY EVENTS OF THE TEAK 1862. — THE CONFEDERATE SITTT- 
ATION IN KENTUCKY. — GEN. A. S. JOHNSTON's COMMAND AND POSITION. — BATTLE OF 
FISHING CEEEK. — THE CONFEDERATE EIGHT IN KENTUCKY. — GEN. CRITTENDEN's COM- 
MAND IN EXTREME STRAITS. — DIFFICULTY IN SUBSISTING IT. — THE DECISION TO GIVE BAT- 
TLE TO THE ENEMY. ZOLLICOFFER'S BRIGADE. — THE CONTESTED HILL. — DEATH OF ZOLLI- 

COFFER. DEFEAT OF THE CONFEDERATES. CRITTENDEN CROSSES THE CUMBERLAND. 

HIS LOSSES. — IMPORTANCE OF THE DISASTER. — DESIGNS OF THE ENEMY IN "WESTERN 
KENTUCKY. — POPULAR DELUSION AS TO JOHNSTON'S STRENGTH. — HOPELESSNESS OF Hlg 
DEFENCE. — OFFICIAL APATHY IN RICHMOND. — BEAUEEGARD's CONFERENCE WITH JOHN- 
STON. — THE TENNESSEE AND CUMBERLAND RIVERS. — THE AVENUE TO NASHVILLE. — 
grant's ascent OF THE TENNESSEE. — CAPTURE OF FORT HENRY. — NOBLE AND GALLANT 
CONDUCT OF GEN. TILGHMAN. — BATTLE OF FORT DONELSON. — JOHNSTON'S REASONS FOB 

MAKING A BATTLE THERE. — COMMANDS OF BUCKNEE, PILLOW, AND FLOYD. SITE AND 

STRENGTH OF THE FORT. BATTLE OF THE TRENCHES. ENGAGEMENT OF THE GUNBOATS. 

TWO days' SUCCESS OF THE CONFEDERATES. SUFFERING OF THE TROOPS FROM COLD. 

EXPOSURE OF THE WOUNDED. — FEDERAL REINFORCEMENTS. — THE CONFEDERATE COUNCIL 

OF WAR. — PLAN OF ATTACK, TO EXTRICATE THE GARRISON. A FIERCE AND TERRIBLE 

CONFLICT. — THE FEDERALS FORCED BACK TOWARDS THE WYNN's FERRY ROAD. — THE OP- 
PORTUNITY OF EXIT LOST. — GEN. BUCKNEr's EXPLANATION. — A COMMENTARY ON MILI- 
TARY HESITATION. — HOW THE DAY WAS- LOST. — NINE HOURS OF COMBAT. — SCENES ON 

THE BATTLE-FIELD. COUNCIL OF CONFEDERATE GENERALS. — GEN. PILLOW'S PROPOSITION. 

— LITERAL EEl'ORT OF THE CONVERSATION OF GENS. FLOYD, PILLOW, AND BUCKNER. — A 
SURRENDER DETERMINED. ESCAPE OF FLOYD AND PILLOW. — BUCKNEr's LETTER TO 

GRANT. — Johnston's movement to nashville. — excitement there. — retreat of 
Johnston's command to murfreesboro'. — panic in nashville. — capture of eoanokb 

ISLAND by the ENEMY. — BUENSIDE's EXPEDITION. — GEN. WISE's ESTIMATE OF THE IM- 
PORTANCE OF ROANOKE ISLAND. — HIS CORRESPONDENCE AND INTERVIEWS WITH SECRE- 
TARY BENJAMIN. DEFENCES OF THE ISLAND. — NAVAL ENGAGEMENT. COMMODORE 

LYNOh's SQUADRON. LANDING OF THE ENEMY ON THE ISLAND. DEFECTIVE EECON- 

NOISSANOE OF THE CONFEDERATES. THEIR WORKS FLANKED. THE SURRENDER. — PUR- 
SUIT OF THE CONFEDERATE GUNBOATS. — EXTENT OF THE DISASTER. — CENSURE OF THE 
EICHMO>rD AUTHORITIES. — SECRETARY BENJAMIN ACCUSED BY THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS. 

The year 1862 is a remarkable one in the history of the war. It 
opened with a fearful train of disasters to the Confederacy tliat brought it 



THE BATTLE OF FISHESTG CEEEK. 199 

almost to the brink of despair, and then was suddenly illuminated by suc- 
cesses that placed it on the highest pinnacle of hope, and put it even in 
instant expectation of its independence. 

In the latter part of 1861, while the Confederacy was but little active, 
the ]^orth was sending into camp, from her great population, regiments 
numbered by hundreds ; was drilling her men, heaping up ammunition 
and provisions, building gunboats for the western rivers, and war-ships 
for the coast, casting mortars and moulding cannon. She was preparing, 
with the opening of the next campaign, to strike those heavy blows in 
Tennessee and Louisiana under which the Confederate States reeled and 
staggered almost to fainting, and from which they recovered by a series of 
successes in Virginia, the most important of the war, and the most bril- 
liant in the martial annals of any people. 

We enter first upon the story of disaster. Despite the victory of Bel- 
mont, the Confederate situation in Kentucky was one of extreme weakness. 
Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston had assumed command of the Confederate 
forces in the Western department. He had occupied Bowling Green in 
Kentucky, an admirably selected position, with Green Biver along his 
front, and railway communication to Nashville and the whole Soutli. 
Had he simf>ly to contend with an enemy advancing from Louisville, he 
would have had but little to fear ; but Grant had command of tlie Cuin- 
berland and Tennessee rivers, and while he might thus advance with his 
gunboats and transports upon Nashville, Buell, the other Federal com- 
mander, was prepared to attack in front. 



BATTLE OF FISHmG CEEEK. 

Having failed, as we have seen, at Columbus, the next movement of the 
enemy in Kentucky was to be made against the Confederate right at 
Mill Springs, on the upper waters of the Cumberland. Brig.-Gen. Zolli- 
cofFer had been reinforced and superseded by Maj.-Gen. Crittenden, and a 
small but gallant array had been collected for the defense of the moun- 
tains. The position of the Confederates was advanced across the Cumber- 
land to Camp Beech Grove ; and the camp was fortified with earth-works. 

The Federal army in Eastern Kentucky occupied Somerset and Colum- 
bia, towns to the north of, but in the vicinity of the upper part of the 
Cumberland Biver. Two strong columns of the enemy were thus advanc- 
ing upon Gen. Crittenden ; and he formed the determination to fall upon 
the nearest column, that under Thomas advancing from Columbia, before 
the arrival of the troops under General Schoepf from Somerset. 

But there were other reasons which determined Crittenden with hip 
«mall army of about four thousand men to risk a battle against Thomat*' 



200 THE LOST CAUSE. 

column, which consisted of two brigades of infantiy, and was greatly his 
snj)eriour in artillery. His troops had been in an almost starving condi- 
tion for some time. For several weeks bare existence in the camp was 
very precarious, from want of provisions and forage. Regiments fre- 
quently subsisted on one third rations, and this very frequently of bread 
alone. Wayne County, which was alone productive in this region of Ken- 
tucky, had been exhausted, and the neighbouring counties of Tennessee 
could furnish nothing to the support of the army. The condition of the 
roads and the poverty of the intervening section rendered it impossible to 
transport from Knoxville, a distance of one hundred and thirty miles. 
The enemy from Columbia commanded the Cumbei-land River, and only 
one boat was enabled to come up with supplies from Kashville. "With the 
channel of communication closed, the position became untenable without 
attack. Only corn could be obtained for the horses and mules, and this in 
such small quantities that often cavalry companies were sent out on un- 
shod horses which had eaten nothing for two days. 

On the afternoon of the IStli of January a council of war was called. 
The position of the enemy was unchanged ; Fishing Creek, a tributary of 
the Cumberland, was swollen by recent rains ; the force of the enemy at 
Somerset was cut off by this stream, and could not be expected to join 
Thomas' column moving from Columbia, until the freshet had subsided. 
It was unanimously agreed to attack Thomas, before the Somerset brigade 
could unite with him. 

The march began at midnight. The first column, commanded by Gen. 
ZollicofFer, consisted of four regiments of infantry and four guns ; the 
second, under Gen. Carroll, in support, of three regiments and two guns, 
the reserve of one regiment and two battalions of cavalry. The Confed- 
erates were ])Oorly supplied with artillery ; but happily the undulating and 
wooded surface of the country presented but little opportunity for the use 
of that arm. 

As the morning of the 19th January broke, the firing of the enemy's 
pickets made a brisk prelude to the contest, and by eight o'clock the battle 
opened with great fury. Zollicofifer's brigade pushed ahead, and drove 
the Federals some distance through the woods, and were endeavouring to 
force their way to the summit of a hill which fully commanded the whole 
field. He was a-scending the hill when the heaviest firing told where the 
battle raged. He sent for reinforcements, and the brigade of Gen. Carroll 
was ordered up. When, in another moment, it was announced that he 
was killed, a sudden gloom pervaded the field and depressed tlie army. 
He had fallen on the crest of the hill — the stronghold of the enemy, which 
he had almost driven them from, and which once gained, the day was 
ours. The enemy in front of him in the woods, after a few moments' ces- 
sation of firing and some movements, was taken by him to be a regiment 



THE BATTLE OF FISHENG CREEK. 201 

of his own command, and lie rode up to give tliem a command, wlien ho 
was shot down, pierced by several balls.* 

The fall of this gallant leader, and a movement of the enemy to flank 
the Confederates, completed their disorder. Gen. Crittenden attempted to 
rally the troops by the most conspicuous displays of personal daring, in 
which he seemed to court death, as he reined up his horse again and again 
abreast of the enemy's fire, and •exhorted his men to stand their ground. 
But the tide of retreat had set in, and all that conld be done was to steady 
the men as they moved back to their entrenchments at Canij) Beech 
Grove. The Confederates left upon the field about three hundred killed 
and wounded, and lost about a hundred prisoners. But this was not the 
measure of the disaster. 

The enemy did not attempt an energetic pursuit. He followed the re- 
treating Confederates as far as their entrenchments, in front of which he 
halted for the night. The Confederates, unprovided with rations and the 
necessary supplies to enable them to hold their entrenched position, and 
fearing lest they should be cut off, retreated across the Cumberland lliver 
during the night. The crossing was efi'ected by the aid of a small steamer, 
which had made its way with supplies for the army from Nashville some 
days previous. Time permitted, however, only the transportation of the 
men ; and Gen. Crittenden effected his retreat after having lost all his 
baggage, camp equipage, wagons, hoi'ses, and artillery. 

The battle of Fishing Creek was not remarkable for lists of killed and 
wounded ; but it was undoubtedly the most serious disaster that had yet 
befallen the Confederate arms. It practically surrendered to the enemy 
the whole of Eastern Kentucky. The right of the defensive line of the 
Confederates was now broken, and the value of their position greatly im- 
paired. On the other part of their line — that through Western Kentucky, 
where the rivers and railroads passed which afforded an entrance into Ten- 
nessee, and so to the heart of the Southern States— an inadequate force 
under Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston was extended from Bowling Green 
on the right to Columbus on the left, presenting to the enemy advantages 
of attack which he could not fail to perceive. 

* The dead body of Zollicoffer was brutally insulted by the enemy. The Cincinnati Commercial 
contained the following sentiment expressed on behalf of what was styled in tlie usual Yankee 
magniloquence and virtuous phrase " a conquering army, battling for the right : " 

" The corpse lay by the side of the road along which we all passed, and all had a fair view of 
what was once Zollicoffer. I saw the lifeless body as it lay in a fence-corner by the side of the 
road, but Zollicoffer himself is now in hell. Hell is a fitting abode for all sucli arch-traitors. May 
all the other chief conspirators in this rebellion soon share Zollicoffer's fate — shot dead tlirough the 
instrumentality of an avenging God — their spirits sent straightway to hell, and their lifeless bodiea 
lie in a fence-corner, their faces spattered with mud, and their garments divided up, and even the 
hair of their head cut off and pulled out by an unsympathizing soldiery of a conquering army, bat- 
tling for the right." 



202 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Never was there sucli a popular delusion in the Confederacy as that 
with respect to the strength of Johnston's army. The Richmond news- 
papers could not " see why Johnston did not muster his forces, advance 
farther into Kentucky, capture Louisville, push across the Ohio, sack Cin- 
cinnati, and carry the war into Africa." But at the time these pleasing 
anticipations of an advance movement were indulged, Johnston actually 
did not have more than twenty-five thousand men. The utter inadequacy 
of his force, and the exposure of his flanks and rear, were well known to 
the proper Confederate authorities. But the Richmond Government ap- 
peared to hope for results without the legitimate means for acquiring 
them ; to look for relief from vague and undefined sources ; and to await, 
with dull expectation, what was next to happen. There is nothing more 
remarkable in the history of the war than the false impressions of the peo- 
ple of the South as to the extent of our forces at the principal strategic 
point in Kentucky, and the long and apathetic toleration by the Govern- 
ment in Richmond of a prospect that promised nothing but eventual 
disaster. 

Shorly after the disaster at Fishing Creek, Gen. Beauregard had been 
sent from the Potomac to Gen. Johnston's lines in Kentucky. At a con- 
ference between the two generals, Beauregard expressed his surprise at 
the smallness of Gen. Johnston's forces, and was impressed with the dan- 
ger of his position. Buell was in front ; the right flank was threatened by 
a large Federal force under Thomas ; while the Cumberland River off'ered 
an opportunity to an attack in the rear, and held the key to Nashville. 

A large force of Federals had been collected at Paducah, at the mouth 
of the Tennessee River, with a view to oflensive operations on the water. 
This river penetrated Teimessee and Alabama, and was navigable for 
steamers for two or three hundred miles. There was nothing to resist the 
enemy's advance up the stream but a weak and imperfectly constructed 
fort. The Cumberland was a still more imj^ortant river, and the avenue 
to Nashville ; but nothing stood in the way of the enemy save Fort Don- 
elson, and from that point the Federal gunboats could reach Nashville in 
six or eight hours, and strike a vital blow at the whole system of Confed- 
erate defences north of the capital of Tennessee. 

Gen. U. S. Grant commenced his ascent of the Tennessee River early 
in February, 1862, with a mixed force of gunboats and infantry columns, 
the latter making parallel movements along the banks. On the 1th of 
February the expedition arrived at Fort Henry, on the east bank of the 
river, and near the lines of Kentucky and Tennessee, The fort was obvi- 
ously untenable, being so absurdly located, that it was enfiladed from three 
or four points on the opposite shore, while other points on the eastern bank 
of the river commanded it at easy cannon range. But there were more 
than twenty-five hundred Confederate troops in the vicinity, under the 



BATfLE OF FOET DOXELSON. 203 

command of Gen. Tilglmian ; and to cover the retreat of these, it became 
necessary to hold the fort to the last moment, and to sacrifice the small 
garrison for the larger nnmber. 

Gen. Grant ^vas moving np the east bank of the river from his landing 
three miles below, with a force of twelve thousand men ; . whilst Gen. 
Smith, with six thousand men, was moving up the west bank to take a 
jjosition within four or five hundred yards, wdiich would enable him to 
enfilade the entire works. The only chance for Gen. Tilghman was to 
delay the enemy every moment possible, and retire his command, now 
outside the main work, to Fort Donelson. To this end it was necessary to 
fight the eleven guns of Fort Henry against an armament of fifty-four 
guns, and an enemy nearly twenty thousand strong, as long as possible. 

Gen. Tilghman nobly devoted himself to the fate of the garrison, in- 
stead of joining the main body of troops retiring towards Fort Donelson, 
the safety of whom depended upon a protracted defence of the fort. He 
engaged the enemy for two hours and ten minutes ; disabled one of his 
gunboats, and inflicted upon him a loss of seventy-three in killed and 
wounded ; and surrendered only when the enemy was breaching the fort 
directly in front of his guns. The brave Confederate commander and the 
small garrison of forty were taken prisoners, after having sustained a loss 
of about twenty killed and wounded. 

The fall of Fort Henry was an unimportant event, of itself ; but it was 
the signal for the direction of the most anxious attention to Fort Donelson 
on the Cumberland. 



BATTLE OF FOKT DONELSON. 

Grant approached Fort Donelson, with immense columns of infantry, 
and with his powerful fleet of gunboats under command of Commodore 
Foote. Gen. Johnston had devoted the larger part of his army to the 
defence of this important post. He had determined to fight for Nashville 
at Donelson ; and he had given the best part of his army to do it, retain- 
ing only to cover his front about eleven thousand efiective men. Gen. 
Buckner had repaired to Fort Donelson with a command embracing most 
of the troops who had composed the central army of Kentucky. On the 
10th of Febniary, Gen. Pillow arrived with a body of Tennessee troops. 
On the loth. Gen, Floyd arrived with his brigade of Virginians, and as 
senior brigadier took command of the whole Confederate force assembled 
at Donelson. 

The site of the fortification commanded a stretch of the river for more 
than two miles. The armament of the batteries consisted of eight 32- 
pounders, three 32-pound carronadcs, one 8-inch columbiad, and one 32- 



204 THE LOST CAUSE. 

pounder rifled gun. A line of entrencliments about two miles in extent 
was occupied by the troops. 

As the sun rose on the 13th of February, the cannonade from one o± 
the enemy's gunboats announced the opening of the conflict, which was 
destined to continue for several days and nights. At eleven o'clock the 
enemy's infantry moved forward upon the entrenchments, along the whole 
line. They were met by a scorching fire, and were repeatedly driven 
back. The day closed with the disastrous repulse of the enemy from the 
trenches at every point of assault. They withdrew their infantry, but 
kept up an incessant fire of artillery and sharpshooters, by which the Con- 
federates were harassed, and deprived of rest and refreshment. 

It was expected that the next day the enemy would renew his attack 
upoil the entrenchments. The morning passed without any indications of 
such an onset. The smoke of a large number of gunboats and steamboats 
on the river was observed a short distance below, and information at the 
same time was received within the Confederate lines of the arrival of rein- 
forcements to the enemy, who was already reported to be more than twen- 
ty thousand strong. 

At half-past two o'clock the Federal fleet drew near the fort. It con- 
sisted of six boats, carrying forty-six guns. Five of these iron-plated bat- 
teries approached in line of battle, en echelon. They kept up a constant 
fire for about an hour and a half. Once the boats got within a few hun- 
dred yards of the fort. When they reached the point of the nearest ap- 
proach, the fire on both sides was tremendous. That of the Confederate 
batteries was too destructive to be borne. Fifty-seven shots struck the 
flag-ship, and more than a hundred in all, plunged u^^on the decks of the 
assaulting fleet. Every boat was disabled, except one, which kept beyond 
the range of fire. With great difliculty, the shattered iron-clads were 
withdrawn from the storm of shot hailed from the fort. Fifty-four men 
were killed and wounded on the boats, while in the batteries not one man 
was killed or seriously hurt, and no injury was done to the works. 

The incidents of two days had been altogether in favour of the Confed- 
erates. Their casualties were small ; but their sufierings had been extreme. 
The conflict had commenced on one of the coldest days of winter ; the 
thermometer was twenty degrees below the freezing point ; and while the 
troops watched on their arms in the trenches, it sleeted and snowed. 
.Many of the men had their feet and hands frozen. Their clothes were 
stiff from frozen water. In the engagement in the trenches, many of the 
wounded who could neither walk nor crawl had been left in the narrow 
space between the two armies ; and as no flag of truce was allowed, under 
which they might have been brought off, they lay there in the pitiless 
weather, calling in vain for help. Many thus died who otherwise might 
have been saved, and those of the wounded who were recovered alive, not 



A 



BATTLE OF FOET DONELSON. 205 

until the last act of tlie battle's tragedy had been closed, were blue with 
cold, and covered with frost and snow. 

Reinforcements were now continually reaching the enemy. Transports 
were arriving nearly every hour, from which dark streams of men could 
be seen pouring along the roads, and completing the investment of the 
lines around the fort. Indeed, it might have been evident from the first, 
that the whole available force of the Federals on the western waters could 
and would be concentrated at Fort Donelson, if it was deemed necessary 
to reduce it. It was fair to infer that while the enemy kept up a constant 
menace of attack, his object was merely to gain time to pass a colunm 
above the works, both on the right and left banks, and thus to cut the 
Confederate communications and prevent the possibility of egress. 

On the night of the 14:th, Gen. Floyd called a council of the officers of 
divisions and brigades. It was unAnimously determined that but one 
course was left by which a rational hope could be entertained of saving 
the garrison, and that was to dislodge the enemy from his position on our 
left, and thus to pass the troops into the open country lying southward, 
towards Nashville. 

The plan of attack was that Gen. Pillow, aided by Brigadier-General 
Bushrod K. Johnson, with three brigades, should advance to the assault of 
the enemy on the right, while Gen. Buckner, with his force, chiefly of 
Kentucky and Tennessee troops, should advance upon the left and centre 
of the enemy along the Wynn's Ferry road, which led from the river and 
village of Dover, and was the only practicable route to ISTashville. When 
Gen. Pillow moved out of his position next morning, he found the enemy 
prepared to receive him in advance of his encampment. For nearly two 
hours the battle raged fiercely on this part of the line, with very little 
change in the position of the adverse forces. 

As the morning advanced, a brigade of Mississippians and Tennesseans 
was thrown forward, and advanced up a hollow, firing temble volleys into 
the enemy's right flank. This heroic band of troops, less than fifteen hun 
dred in number, marched up the hill, loading and firing as they moved, 
gaining inch by inch, on an enemy at least four times their number. For 
one long hour this point was hotly contested by the enemy. At last, 
unable to bear the hot assault, the Federals gave way, and fell back slowly 
to the left, retiring towards the Wynn's Ferry road. 

Gen. Buckner's advance on the centre and left of the enemy was re- 
tarded by various causes, and it was nearly nine o'clock before this part of 
the Confederate forces became fairly engaged with the enemy. A portion 
of his artillery opened upon the flank and left rear of the enemy's infantry, 
who were being pressed back by Gen. Pillow's division. 

As the enemy's line of retreat was along the Wynn's Ferry road. Gen. 
Buckner now organized an attack further to his right, up a deep valley, in 



206 THE LOST CAUSE. 

rear of the position occupied by the enemy's batteries. The advance of his 
infantry column was covered by artillery. The movement, combined with 
the brisk fire of three batteries, induced a rapid retreat of the enemy, who 
abandoned a section of his artillery. At the same time that Buckner's in- 
fantry was thus penetrating the line of the enemy's retreat, Forrest, with a 
portion of his cavalry, charged upon their right, while Pillow's division 
was pressing their extreme right about half a mile further to the left. 

It now appeared that the crisis of the battle was past. Victory, or such 
success as they had sought, seemed to be within the grasp of the Confed- 
erates. The Wynn's Ferry road was now not only open, but cleared of 
the enemy entirely on one side, and for a mile and a half on the other. 
Of this posture of affairs. Gen. Buckner, in his oflScial report, writes : " I 
awaited the arrival of my artillery and reserves, either to continue the 
pursuit of the enemy, or to defend the position I now held, in order that 
the army might pass out on the road, which was now completely covered 
by the position occupied by my division. But Gen. Pillow had prevented 
my artillery from leaving the entrenchments, and also sent me reiterated 
orders to return to mv entrenchments on the extreme ri^ht. I was in the 
act of returning to the lines, when I met Gen. Floyd, who seemed sur- 
prised at the order. At his request to know my opinion of the movement, 
I replied that nothing had occurred to change my views of the necessity 
of the evacuation of the post, that the road was open, that the first part of 
our purpose was fully accomplished, and I thought we should at once 
avail ourselves of the existing opportunity to regain our communications. 
These seemed to be his own views ; for he directed me to halt my troops 
and i-emain in position until he should have conversed with Gen. Pillow, 
who was now within the entrenchments. After that consultation, he sent 
me an order to retire within the lines, and to repair as rapidly as possible 
to my former position on the extreme right, which was in danger of 
attack." 

It was long a source of keen regret among those few people in the 
Confederacy who knew the real history of the Fort Donelson battle, that 
their army did not attempt a retreat at the precise period of opportunity. 
But a few moments of that superabundant caution, which hesitates to seize 
the crisis, and insists upon reconnoitring an advantage, are often fatal 
upon a field of battle. It was thought by those supcriour to Gen. Buck- 
ner in command, that it would be hazardous to attempt a retreat while the 
enemy, though defeated, was near at hand with fresh troops. 

The hesitation was fatal. The effect of the violent attack of the Con- 
federates on the enemy's right, followed up by Gen. Buckner's advance on 
his centre, had been to roll over his immense masses towards the right of 
the Confederate works, immediately in front of their river batteries. The 
advantage was instantly appreciated. The enemy drove back the Confed- 



BATTLE OF FORT DONELSON. 207 

erates, advanced on the trenches on the extreme right of Gen. Buckner'g 
command, getting possession, alter a stubborn conflict of two hours, of the 
most important and commanding position of the battle-field, being in 
the rear of our river batteries, and, advancing with fresh forces towards 
our left, drove back our troops from the ground that had been won in the 
severe and terrible conflict of the early part of the day. 

After nine hours of combat, the enemy held the field ; he had changed 
the fortune of the day by a quick and opportune movement ; and he now 
held the Confederates in circumstances of desperation. Of the results of 
the day. Gen. Floyd reported : " We had fought the battle to open our 
way for our army, and to relieve us from an investment which would 
necessarily reduce us and the position we occupied by famine. We had 
accomplished our object, but it occupied the w^liole day, and before we 
could prepare to leave, after taking in the wonnded and the dead, the 
enemy had thrown around us again, in the night, an immense force of 
fresh troops, and reoccupied his original position in the line of investment, 
thus again cutting off our retreat. We had only about 13,000 troops, all 
told. Of these we had lost a large proportion in the three battles. The 
command had been in the trenches night and day for five days, exposed 
to snow, sleet, mud, and ice and water, without shelter, without adequate 
covering, and without sleep." 

The field of battle was thickly strewn with dead and wonnded. The 
loss of the Confederates was estimated at fifteen hundred. That of the 
enemy Gen. Floyd conjectures, in his official report, to have been at least 
five thousand. 

Ghastly spectacles were abundant, as the eye ranged over this scene of 
mortal strife ; for the ground was in many places red with frozen blood, 
and the snow which lay under the pine thickets was marked with crimson 
streams. There were two miles of dead strewn thickly, mingled with fire- 
arms, artillery, dead horses, and the paraphernalia of the battle-field. 
Many of the bodies were fearfully mangled, and the ponderous artillery 
wheels had crushed limbs and skulls. The dead were promiscuously min- 
gled, sometimes grappling in the fierce death-throe, sometimes facing each 
other as they gave and received the fatal shot and thrust, sometimes hud- 
dled in grotesque shapes, and again heaped in piles which lay six or seven 
feet deep. 

" I could imagine," says an eye-witness of the field of carnage, " noth- 
ing more terrible than the silent indications of agony that marked the fea« 
turcs of the pale coi-pses which lay at every step. Though dead and rigid 
in every muscle, they still writhed, and seemed to turn 1o catch the pass- 
ing breeze for a cooling breath. Staring eyes, gaping mouths, clenched 
hands, and strangely contracted limbs, seemingly drawn into the smallest 
compass, as if by a mighty efibrt to rend asunder some irresistible bond 



208 THE LOST CAUSE. 

whicli held them down to the torture of which they died. One sat against 
a tree, and, with mouth and eyes wide open, looked up into the sky, as if 
to catch a glance at its fleeting spirit. Another clutched the branch of an 
overhanging tree, and hung half-suspended, as if in the death-pang he had 
raised himself partly from the ground ; the other had grasped his faithful 
musket, and the compression of his mouth told of the determination which 
would have been fatal to a foe, had life ebbed a minute later. A third 
clung with both hands to a bayonet which was buried in the ground. 
Great numbers lay in heaps, just as the fire of the artillery mowed them 
down, mangling their forms into an almost undistinguishable mass." 

Late in the night of the 15th of February, another conference of gen- 
eral officers was called. It was, indeed, a memorable one. Gen. Pillow 
appears to have favoured a proposition for a desperate onset upon the 
right of the enemy's forces, with the prospect of thus extricating a consid- 
erable proportion of the command. Gen. Buckner remarked, that it would 
cost the command three-fourths its present numbers to cut its way out, and 
it was wrong to sacrifice three-fourths to save one-fourth ; that no oflicer 
had a right to cause such a sacrifice. Tlie alternative of the proposition 
was a surrender of the position and command. Gen. Floyd declared that 
he would not surrender himself a prisoner, and proposed to escape with 
such portion of his command as was possible on two small steamers, which 
had arrived from Nashville during the night. Gen. Pillow remarked that 
he thought there were no two persons in the Confederacy whom the 
'' Yankees " would ]3refer to capture than himself and Gen. Floyd, and 
asked the latter's opinion as to the propriety of his accompanying him. 
To this inquiry Gen. Floyd replied that it was a question for every 
man to decide for himself. Gen. Pillow then addressed the inquiry to 
Gen. Buckner, to which Gen. Buckner remarked that he could only reply 
as Gen. Floyd had done ; that it was a question for every oflicer to decide 
for himself, and that in his own case he regarded it as his duty to remain 
with his men and share their fate, whatever it might be. 

It was then arranged that the command should be passed. Gen. Buck- 
ner asked, " Am I to consider the command as turned over to me ? " Gen. 
Floyd replied, " Certainly, I turn over the command." Gen. Pillow replied 
quickly, " I pass it. I will not surrender." Gen. Buckner then called for 
pen, ink, paper, and a bugler, and prepared to open communication with 
the Federal commander. 

A number of men had fallen in battle ; some of the sick and wounded 
had been removed ; and detachments of troops had escaped under Floyd, 
Pillow, and Forrest ; leaving the number surrendered by Gen. Buckner to 
the enemy less than nine thousand men. Gen. Grant had demanded 
" Unconditional Surrender " — words, which the Northern populace after- 
wards attached to his name as a peculiar title to glory ; and Gen. 



PANIC IN NASHVILLE. 209 

Buckner replied : " Tlie distribution of the forces under m}'- command, 
incident to an unexpected change of commanders, and tlie overwhelming 
force under your command, compel me, notwithstanding the brilliant suc- 
cess of the Confederate arms yesterday, to accept the ungenerous and un- 
chivah'ous terms which you propose." 

The fall of Fort Donelson was the heaviest blow that had yet fallen on 
the Confederacy. It opened the whole of "West Tennessee to Federal 
occupation, and it developed the crisis which had long existed in the 
West. Gen. A. S. Johnston had previously ordered the evacuation of Bow- 
ling Green ; and the movement was executed while the battle was being 
fought at Donelson. Gen. Johnston awaited the result of the battle oppo- 
site Nashville. At dawn of the IGtli of February he received the news of 
a defeat. Orders were at once issued to push the army forward across the 
river as soon as possible. The city ])apers or extras of that morning pub- 
lished despatches announcing a " glorious victory." The city was wild with 
joy. About the time the people M'ere assembling at the churches, it was 
announced by later extras that " Donelson had fallen." The revulsion was 
great. Governor Harris had been informed of the fact early in the morn- 
ing, and had proceeded to Gen. Johnston's head-quarters to advise with 
him as to the best course to adopt under the altered circumstances. The 
General said that ISTashville was utterly indefensible; that the army 
would pass right through the city ; that any attempt to defend it with the 
means at his command would result in disaster to the army, and the de- 
stnjction of the city ; that the first and highest duty of the governor was 
to the public trusts in his hands, and he thought, to discharge them prop- 
erly, he should at once remove the archives and public records to some 
safer place, and call the Legislature together elsewhere than at Nashville. 
Gen. Johnston retreated with his army towards Murfreesboro', leaving 
behind him a scene of panic and dismay. 

The confusion at Nashville did not reach its height until a humane at- 
tempt was made to distribute among the poor a portion of the public 
stores which could not be removed. The lowest passions seemed to have 
been aroused in a large mass of men and wonien, and the city appeared as 
if it was in the hands of a mob. A detachment of Forrest's cavalry en- 
deavoured to enforce order. Houses were closed, carriages and wagons 
were concealed, to prevent the mob from taking possession of them. 
Horses were being seized everywhere. After every other means failed, 
Forrest charged the mob, before he could get it so dispersed as to get 
wagons to the doors of the departments, to load up the stores for transpor- 
tation. The loss of public stores by depredations was not less than a mil- 
lion of dollars. " In my judgment," said Col. Forrest, "if the quarter- 
master and commissary had remained at their posts, and worked diligently 
with the means at their command, the government stores might all have 
14 



210 THE LOST CAUSE. 

been saved between the time of the fall of Fort Donelson and the arrival 
of the enemy in Nashville." 

We shall complete this chapter by a brief account of a defeat :f Con- 
federate arms that preceded by several days the fall of Fort Donelson, 
and took place on a widely separated theatre of the war. The thread of 
Confederate disaster takes ns here from the tributaries of the Mississippi 
to the low and melanclioly sea-line of North Carolina. 



CAPTURE OF ROANOKE ISLAND BY THE ENEMY. 

About the middle of January, 1862, Gen. Burnside entered Pamlico 
Sound at the head of an expedition, consisting of more than sixty vessels 
of all kinds, twenty-six of them gunboats, and with at least fifteen thousand 
men. It readily became apparent that Eoanoke Island was the first ob- 
ject of his attack. This important island lies in the broad inlet between 
Pamlico and Currituck Sounds, and about midway between the main land 
and the narrow strip of bank which dykes out the ocean. It was of great 
moment to the South to defend it, for its possession by the enemy would 
unlock to them Albemarle and Currituck Sounds, open to them eight rivers, 
give them access to the country chiefly supplying provisions to Norfolk, 
and enable them to menace that city, and the four canals and two rail- 
roads running through the country by which it was surrounded. 

Gen. Henry A. Wise, who had been ordered to the command of the 
department embracing Roanoke Island, declared that it should be defend- 
ed at the e^'^'ense of twenty thousand men, and many millions of dollars. 
But to his .stimate of the importance of the position he found that the 
Hichmond authorities had a deaf ear. On the 7th of January, 1862, Gen. 
Wise assumed command, and made an examination of the defences. He, 
found them inadequate, in his opinion, to resist even the force then at 
Hatteras, and as the Bnrnside expedition began already to point to the 
North Carolina coast, he called urgently for reinforcements. He addressed 
a letter to Mr. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of War, and followed 
it by a personal interview, in which he strenuously insisted that more 
troops should be sent to the island. He urged that a large part of Gen. 
Huger's command, at Norfolk, might be safely detached, and used for the 
defence of Roanoke. He argued that the fifteen thousand men under 
Huger were idle, and were only kept at Norfolk in view of a possible 
attack, and that they would much more advantageously defend the city, by 
guarding the approaches through the Sound, than by remaining inactive. 
He explained that Roanoke Island guarded more than four-fifths of all 
Norfolk's supplies of corn, pork and forage, and that its capture by the 
enemy would cut the command of Gen. Huger off from all its most 



LOSS OF EOANOKE ISLAND. 211 

efficient transportation. But Mr. Benjamin would not adopt these views, 
and would not disturb Gen. Huger ; be told AVise sullenly that tbere 
were no men to spare to reinforce bim ; and at last be brongbt tbe confer- 
ences and protestations of tbe General to an abrupt termination by a 
peremptory military order, dated tbe 22d of January, requiring bim to pro- 
ceed immediately to Roanoke Island. 

The defences of tbe island consisted of seven small gunboats and six land 
batteries, not casemated, and wholly inefficient. After manning tbe forts, 
there were scarcely more than eight hundred effective men. In the sick- 
ness of Gen. Wise, who was confined to his bed at Nag's Head, tbe imme- 
diate command devolved upon Col. Shaw, tbe senior officer present. 

In the morning of tbe 7tb of February the enemy made an attack, with 
twenty-two heavy steamers, upon the little Confederate squadron under 
tbe command of Commodore Lynch, and upon Fort Bartow, the most 
southern of tbe defences on the west side of the island. The action com- 
menced at two miles distance, tbe Confederate gunboats retiring slowly 
with the intention of drawing tbe enemy under tbe guns of the batteries. 
Soon the air was filled with heavy reports, and tbe sea was disturbed in 
every direction by fragments of shell. Explosions of shell rang through 
the air ; and occasionally a large one hundred and twenty-four pounder 
thundered across the waves, and sent its ponderous shot in the midst of 
the flotilla. At times, tbe battery would be enveloped in the sand and 
dust thrown up by shot and shell. The scene of this bombardment, which 
lasted continuously from ten in the morning until half-past five in the 
afternoon, was a singular and picturesque one. The melancholy shore- 
line which bound it, was an unbroken one of dark cypresses and pines. 
On tbe water were the enemy's vessels rapidly pouring out shot and shell 
at the line of Confederate gunboats or at the batteries. Still further on, 
just gleaming through the sunlight, was the forest of masts and tbe white 
sails of the transports, kept far in the rear out of the reach of danger. 

Our casualties on the gunboats were only one man killed and three 
wounded. But the engagement had been disastrous. The Curlew, our 
largest steamer, was sunk, and the Forrest, one of the i^ropellers, disabled. 
Commodore Lynch writes, in his official report, that at the close of the 
action he had " not a pound of powder or a loaded shell remaining." This 
singular deficiency of ammunition and tbe disasters he had already sus- 
tained, determined the policy of retreat, and under cover of the night, tbe 
squadron was drawn off to Elizabeth City. 

Gen. Burnside gave orders that a landing should be made on the island 
tbe next morning. It was accomplished under cover of the gunboats, 
about the centre of tbe western shore. At nine o'clock the enemy ad- 
vanced through a country swampy and covered with forest. About tbe 
centre of the island an entrenchment bad been thrown up, covered on the 



212 THE LOST CAUSE. 

lianks by marshy ground ; and here the Confederates to^k position to dis- 
pute the enemy's advance. But the marshes were found lO be practicable. 
The Federals advanced with flanking cokiums debouching to the riglit and 
left. Their overwhelming numbers literally crowded upon and crushed 
our battery of three tield-pieces on the left,* while at the same time the 
enemy passed through the cypress swamp, which Col. Shaw thought im- 
practicable, and turned the right flank. The order was given to spike the 
guns in the battery, and retreat to the northern end of the island. The 
Confederates were followed up to the shore, slowly and cautiously, by the 
enemy. Some eff'ected their escape in boats, which were quickly towed 
away by a steamer ; but the bulk of the command was captured, includ- 
ing two boats conveying the wounded, which were compelled to return by 
tlie enemy's fire. 

The capture of the island was immediately followed by the pursuit of 
the Confederate gunboats. A squadron, consisting of fourteen gunboats, 
was detached for that purpose, and, on the lOtli of February, found the 
remaining Confederate vessels drawn up in line in the narrow channel 
which leads up to Elizabeth City. After a brief and desultory engage- 
ment, the crews of the Confederate gunboats, after setting fire to the ves- 
sels, abandoned tlieni, and fled for the shore. Thus was the disaster of 
lloanoke Island complete. The Confederates had lost in all the actions 
but twenty-three killed and fifty-eight wounded. But the disaster in other 
respects was great. The enemy had taken six forts, forty guns, nearly two 
thousand prisoners, and upwards of three thousand small arms ; secured 
the water avenue of Roanoke River, navigable for one hundred and twenty 
miles ; got possession of the granary and larder of Norfolk, and threatened 
the back-door of that city. 

The disaster of Roanoke Island dates the period when public ceusnro 
towards the Richmond Government appeared to have first awakened. 
Heretofore the administration of that Government had gone on almost 

* In this action was killed Capt. 0. Jennings Wise, of the " Richmond Blues," a son of Geu. 
Wise, a young man of brilliant promise, prominently connected with the Richmond press before the 
war, and known throughout the State for his talents, chivahic bearing, and modesty of behaviour. 
A correspondent furnishes the following particulars of the dc;ith of this brilliant young ofEcer : 

"About ten o'clock Capt. Wise found his battalion exposed to the galhng fire of a regiment; turn- 
ing to Capt. Coles, he said : ' This fire is very hot ; tell Col. Anderson we must fall back or be rein- 
forced.' Capt. Coles turned to pass the order, and was shot through the heart, dying instantly. Capt. 
Wise was wounded, first in the arm and next through the lungs, which latter wound brought him 
U) the ground. He was borne to the hospital in charge of Surgeon Coles, and received two additional 
woundu while being borne from the field. That evening Surgeon Coles put him into a boat to send 
Lim to Nag's Head, but the enemy fired upon it, and he was ol)liged to return. The enemy seemed 
to regret this, and treated him very kindly, taking him out of the boat on a mattress, and starting 
back to the hospital. Tlie next day, about eleven o'clock a. m., he calmly and in his perfect senses, 
without suffering, softly passed away. A Federal officer, standing by him and witnessing hid death, 
6uid, ' There is a brave man I ' " 



LOSS OF EOANOKE ISLAND. 213 

without inquiry, the people presuming on the wisdom of their rulers, and 
having but little curiosity to penetrate the details of their business, or to 
violate that singular ofiicial reserve which was thrown around the mili- 
tary condition of the Confederacy from the first gun of the war down tc 
the final catastrophe. But such a disaster as that referred to, in which 
improvidence stared out, and in which an army had been put, as it were, 
in a mash-trap — in a condition in which it could neither hope for success 
nor extricate itself from a besetting peril — provoked public inquiry, and 
demanded an investigation.* 

A committee was accordingly ordered in the Confederate Congress to 
report upon the affair of Roanoke Island. It declared that the Secretary 
of War, Mr. J. P. Benjamin, was responsible for an important defeat of 
our arms, which might have been safely avoided by him ; that he had paid 
no practical attention to the appeals of Gen. Wise ; and that he had, by 
plain acts of omission, permitted that general and an inconsiderable force 
to remain to meet at least fifteen thousand men, well armed and equipped. 
No defence to this charge was ever attempted by Secretary Benjamin or 
his friends ; and the unanimous conclusion of the committee, charging one 
of President Davis' Cabinet with a matter of the gravest offence known to 
the laws and the interests of the country, was allowed to remain on the 
public record without commentary or consequence. 

* The Richmond Enquirer had the following commentary on the Roanoke Island affair. It 
contains a picture of Confederate improvidence, which was to be repeated at many stages of the war, 
and to put our scantiness and shiftlessness in frightful contrast with the active zeal and muniiiccut 
preparations of the enemy : 

" On the island no preparations whatever had been made. Col. Shaw's regiment, Col. Jordan's, 
and three companies of Col. Marten's regiment, had been on the island for months. These regiments 
numbered, all present, one thousand nine hundred and fourteen. Of these, about one thousand 
seven hundred were soldiers. There were four hundred and fifty absent and sick, leaving one thou- 
sand two hundred and fifty for all duty. From these, five batteries had to be manned, leaving, on 
the morning of the eighth, only eight hundred and three North Carolina infantry reported for duty. 
These had not been paid, or clothed, or fed, or drilled. The island had no implements for the la- 
bour on the works, no teams but two pair of broken-down mules, and no horses for field-artillery. 
There were but three pieces of field-artillery — one twenty-four pounder, one eighteen pounder, and 
one brass howitzer — the mules drew the latter, and the men the heavier pieces through the sand. 
There was only twelve-pounder ammunition for any of the large pieces. The forts, built on the 
island before Gen. Wise was assigned to the command, were all in the wrong places — at the north 
end of the island — leaving all the landings on the south end uncovered by a single battery. No 
breastworks had been made, and there were no tools to make an}' — the marshes at the south end of 
tha island had no defensive works upon them. But oue steam-tug and two barges were provided, 
and there were no means of retreat either by tugs or ferry. Thus it will be seen there were provided 
no means of d?''9uce, and still less of escape, though timely notice and a providential warning of 
tw3nty-five days had been given." 



CHAPTEE XIII, 



TBUE OAtrSES OF THE CONFEDERATE DISASTERS IN THE SECOND TEAR OF THE WAR. -THB 
enemy's " ANACONDA PLAN." — REBUKES TO THE VANITY OF THE CONFEDERATES. -THK 

SUM OF THEIR DISASTERS. INAUGURATION OF THE PERMANENT GOVERNMENT OF THE 

CONFEDERATE STATES. GLOOMY SCENE IN CAPITOL SQUARE. PRESIDENT DAVIs' SPEECH. 

— COMMENTARY OF A RICHMOND JOURNAL. CAUSES OF POPULAR ANIMATION IN THE CON- 
FEDERACY. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENEMY's DESIGN UPON SLAVERY. HISTORY OF THE 

ANTI-SLAVERY MEASURES OF LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION — HIS EARLY DECLARATION OF 

NON-INTERFERENCE WITH SLAVERY. MR. SEWARD IN 1860. LINCOLN'S STATEMENT, 

MARCH 4tH, 1861. DIPLOMATIC DECLARATION, APRIL, 1861. EARLY AFFECTATIONS OF 

Lincoln's administration on the subject of slavery. — m'clellan's address. — 

m'dOWELl's order. — revocation of the emancipation measured of FREMONT AND 
HUNTER. FIRST ACT OF ANTI-SLAVERY LEGISLATION AT WASHINGTON. LOVEJOY's RESO- 
LUTION. THE ANTI-SLAVERY CLAUSE IN THE CONFISCATION ACT. — THREE NOTABLE MEAS- 
URES OF ANTI-SLAVERY LEGISLATION. — COMMENCEMENT OF THE EMANCIPATION POLICY IN 

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. EXPLANATION OF THE ASCENDANCY OF THE ABOLITION 

PARTY DURING THE WAR. — THE NEW CONFEDERATE CONGRESS. ITS VIGOUR. — THE OLD 

PROVISIONAL CONGRESS. ITS MEASURES. — ITS ECHOES TO FEDERAL LEGISLATION. THE 

SEQUESTRATION LAW. — SILLY AND DEMAGOGICAL MILITARY LEGISLATION. THE " SIXTY 

days' FURLOUGH " LAW. — ALARM OF GEN. JOHNSTON. — INDISPOSITION OF CONFEDERATE 
VOLUNTEERS TO RE-ENLIST. — THE CONSCRIPTION LAW OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES. — ITS 
TIMELY PASSAGE. ITS PROVISIONS AND EFFECT. — OTHER MILITARY ACTS OF THE CONFED- 
ERATE CONGRESS. — RE-ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY. DESTRUCTION OF SOUTHERN COT- 
TON AND TOBACCO. AUTHORIZATION OF PARTISAN SERVICE. — ALTERNATIONS OF CONFED- 
ERATE VICTORY AND DEFEAT. — THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. BATTLE OF ELK HORN. VAN 

DORN's COMMAND. AN OBSTINATE FIGHT. DEATH OF m'cULLOCH. — THE CONFEDERATE 

SUCCESS INDECISIVE AND IMPERFECT. — REASONS FOR VAN DORN's RETREAT. — CONFED- 
ERATE DESIGNS UPON MISSOURI ABANDONED FOB THE PRESENT. TRANSFER OF VAN 

DORN's and price's FORCES. — NAVAL FIGHT IN HAMPTON ROADS. THE VIRGINIA AND 

THE MONITOR. LACK OF NAVAL ENTERPRISE IN THE CONFEDERACY. THE PRIVATEER 

SERVICE. — CONSTRUCTION OF THE VIRGINIA. CONFEDERATE SQUADRON IN THE JAMES 

RIVER. — FEDERAL FLEET OFF FORTRESS MONROE. FEARFUL ENTERPRISE OF THE VIR- 
GINIA. SINKING OF THE CUJIBERLAND. GALLANTRY OF HER CREW. A THRILLING 

SCENE OF HEROIC DEVOTION. SURRENDER OF THE CONGRESS. FRIGHTFUL SCENES OF 

CARNAGE. PERFIDIOUS CONDUCT OF THE ENEMY. — THE VIRGINIA ENGAGES THE MINNE- 
SOTA. WONDERFUL RESULTS OF THE FIRST DAY'S FIGHT. SECOND DAY's FIGHT. APPA- 
RITION OF THE MONITOR. A SINGULAR SCENE OF NAVAL COMBAT. A DRAWN BATTLE. — ■ 



CONFEDERATE DISASTERS. 2l5 

EXCITEMENT ABOUT IHON VESSELS. — DISCUSSION IN THE NEWSPAPERS. — ADDITION OF IBON- 
CLADS TO THE FEDERAL NAVY. — WHAT m'cLELLAN TnOUGHT OF THE VIRGINIA.— CAPTURB 

OF NEWBERN, &C. OBJE'CTS OF BURNSIDe's EXPEDITION. BRANCH'S COMiMAND AT NEW- 

BERX. THE CONFEDERATE WORKS ON THE NEUSE RIVER. — RETREAT OF BRANCH. FED- 
ERAL OCCUPATION, OF NEWBERN. — CAPTURE OF FORT MACON. THE ENTIRE COASI OF 

NORTH CAROLINA IN THE POSSESSION OF THE ENEMY. THE SEA-COAST AN UNIMPORTANT 

TART OF THE CONFEDERATE DEFENCES. 

The series of disasters that befel the Confederates in tlie earlj month? 
of 1862, may be distinctly and sufBciently traced to human causes. In- 
stead of being ascribed to the mysterious dispensations of Providence, they 
are more properly named as the results of human mismanagement. Tho 
first important defeat of the Federal arms on the plains of Manassas was the 
initial point with the North of an enlarged scheme of war, and it was now 
simply giving proof of its " Anaconda Plan," and realizing the natural 
result of those immense preparations it had made by sea and land, to con- 
found its adversary. 

The rebukes which were now being administered to the vaingloriousness 
of the South were neither few nor light. The Confederates had been 
worsted in almost every engagement tliat had occurred since the fall of 
1861. There had come disaster after disaster, culminating in the fall of 
Donelson, the occupation of Nashville, the breaking of our centre, the fall- 
ing back on all sides, the realization of invasion, the imminence of perils 
which no one dared to name. 

No one who lived in Richmond during the war can ever forget these 
gloomy, miserable days. In the midst of them was to occur the ceremony 
of the inauguration of the Permanent Government of the Confederate 
States. It was only a diiference of name between two governments, one 
called Provisional and the other Permanent ; for Mr. Davis had been 
unanimously elected President, and there was no change either of the 
organic law or of the personnel of the Administration. But the ceremony 
of the second inauguration of President Davis was one of deep interest to 
the public ; for it was supposed that he might use the occasion to develop 
a new policy and to reanimate the people. The 22d of February, the day 
appointed for the inauguration, was memorable for its gloom in Pichmond. 
Hain fell in torrents, and the heavens seemed to be hung with sable. Yet 
a dense crowd collected, braving the rain-storm in their eager interest to 
hear the President's speech from the steps of the Capi^)l. " It M'as then," 
said a Richmond paper, " that all eyes were turned to our Chief ; that we 
lumg upon his lips, hushing the beating of our heavy hearts that we might 
catch the word of fire we longed to hear — that syllable of sympathy of 
which a nation in distress stands so in need. One sentence then of defiance 
and of cheer — something bold, and warm, and human — had sent a thrill 
of lightning through the land, and set it ablaze with the fresh and quench- 



216 THE LOST CAUSE. 

less flame of renewed and never-ending fight. That sentence never camei 
The people were left to themselves." 

The Confederate President offered bnt little of counsel or encourage- 
ment to his distressed countrymen. lie declared that the magnified pro- 
Dortioiis of the war had occasioned serious disasters, -find that tlie effort 
was impossible to protect the whole of the territoiy of the Confederate 
States, sea-board and inland. To the popular complaint of inefficiency in 
the departments of the Government, he replied that they had done all 
which human power and foresight enabled them to accomplish. He lifted 
up, in conclusion, a piteous, beautiful, appropriate prayer for the favour of 
Divine providence. 

But it is not to be supposed that the people of the Confederacy, al- 
though so little cheered or sustained by their rulers, despaired of the war. 
There were causes, which were rekindling the fiercest flames of war aj)art 
from official inspiration at Richmond. The successes of the enemy had 
but made him more hateful, and strengthened the South in the determina- 
tion to have done with him forever. They found new causes of animosity ; 
the war had been brought home to their bosoms ; they had obtained prac- 
tical lessons of the enemy's atrocity and his insolent design ; and they 
came to the aid of their Government with new power and a generosity that 
was quite willing to forget all its short-comings in the past. 

One great cause of animated resolution on the part of the Confederate 
States was the development at Washington of the design upon slavery, 
now advanced to a point where there could no longer be a doubt of the 
revengeful and radical nature of the war. The ste[)s by which the Federal 
Government had reached this point were in a crooked path, and attended 
by marks of perfidy. It had indeed given to the world on this subject an 
astoundins: record of bad faith, calculated to overwhelm the moral sense 
of the reader as he compares its diflerent parts and approaches its grand 
conclusion of self-contradiction the most defiant, and deception the most 
shameless. 

Never had there been such an emphatic protest of a political design as 
that given by Mr. Lincoln on taking the reins of government, declaring 
that there M'as no possible intention, no imaginable occasion, no actual de- 
sire to interfere with the sul)ject of negro slavery in the States. Mr. 
Seward, who had been constituted Secretary of State, and who had been 
Mr. Lincoln's moutft-piece in Congress before the inauguration, had de- 
clared there : " Experience in public aftairs has confirmed my opinion that 
domestic slavery existing in any State is wisely left by the Constitution of 
the United States, exclusively to the care, management, and disposition of 
that State ; and if it were in my jpower I loould not alter the Constitution 
in that respect.''^ "Words could scarcely be more distinct and emphatic ; 
but Mr. Lincoln, in his inauguration address, had seen fit to add to them, 



FALSITY OF THE ABOLITIONISTS. 217 

and, quoting from a former speech, announced to the country : " I have 
no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interlere Avitli the institution of 
slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to 
do so, and / liave no inclination to do soP 

This assurance was again repeated after the commencement of hosti'_i- 
ties, as if there was the most anxious purpose to obtain the ear of the 
Southern peoi)lc on the subject, and to impress the world with the just and 
moderate designs of the war. In his letter of April, 1861, to the Federal 
minister at Paris, intended as a diplomatic circular for the courts of Eu- 
rope, and an authoritative exposition of the objects and spirit of the war 
on the Northern side, Mr. Seward, by direction of the President, wrote : 
" The condition of slavery in the several States will remain just the same, 
whether it succeeds or fails. The rights of the States, and the condition of 
every human being in them, will remain subject to exactly the same laws 
and form of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether 
it shall fail. Their constitutions and laws and customs, habits and institu- 
tions in either case will remain the same. It is hardly necessary to add to 
this incontestable statement the further fact that the new President, as well 
as the citizens through whose s^?.'ffrages he has come into the administra- 
tion, has always repudiated ah designs whatever, and wherever imputed 
to him and them, of d,isturhing the system of sla/very as it is existing under 
the Constitution and laivs. The case, however, would not be fully pre- 
sented were I to omit to say that any such effort on his part would be 
unconstitutional^ and all his acts in that direction would be prevented by 
the judicial authority, even though they were assented to by Congress and 
the people." 

The first acts of the Federal authority in the active prosecution of the 
war, touching the institution of slavery, were busily conformed to these 
assurances. They even afforded an extravagant testimony of their sin- 
cerity. Fugitive slaves were not only arrested within the Federal military 
lines and returned to slavery, but were tahen in the streets of Washington 
and returned, by judicial process, to their masters. On the 2Gth of May, 
1861, Gen. McClellan issued an address to the people of Western Virginia, 
assuring them that not only would the Federal troops abstain from all in- 
terference Avith their slaves, but that they would crush any attempt at 
servile insurrection. Gen. McDowell issued an order forbidding fugitive 
slaves from coming into, or being harboured within his lines. When on 
the 31st of August, 1861, Gen. Fremont, in Missouri, iosued an order de- 
claring the negro slaves within his military department to be free men, it 
was instantly repudiated and nullified at Washington. At a later jicriod, 
Gen. Hunter, commanding the Department of the South, issued an order 
putting the States of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida under ma^-tial 
law, and declaring that, as slavery and martial law were incompatible, '•he 



218 TUE LOST CAUSE. 

slaves in those States were forevei free. Mr. Lincoln set aside this decla« 
ration, and made it an occasion of rebuke to the pragmatical commander, 
who had thus attempted to extend to political objects the police regulationa 
of armies and camps. 

It is remarkable how this affectation of non-interference with slavery 
was laid aside by successive measures of the Federal Government, imlil at 
last it discovered its real purpose of the entire excision of slavery, and 
Mr. Lincoln fell into the arms of the extreme Abolition party, and adopted 
the doctrine that the opportunity was to be taken in the prosecution of 
hostilities to crush out slavery as the main cause of difference, and thus 
assure the fruit of a permanent peace. The first official display of anti- 
slavery sentiment in the war was in the extra session of Congress in July, 
1861. Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, proposed a resolution, which was adopted, 
declai'ing that it was no part of the duty of Federal soldiers to capture and 
return fugitive slaves. This measure was apparently reasonable ; but it 
was significant of a badly-disguised sentiinent, the consequences of which 
were soon to be developed. J^ext to Lovejoy's resolution was that part of 
the Confiscation Act, which specially provided that any owner of a slave, 
or any person having a legal claim to his services, who should require or 
permit such slave to take up arms against, or be in any way employed in 
military or naval service against the United States,- should thereby forfeit 
all claim to him, any law of a State or of the United States to the contrary 
notwithstanding. 

The advance of the anti-slavery sentiment was now to be rapid and 
decisive. In the Thirty-seventh Federal Congress, which met at Washing- 
ton in December, 1861, it accomplished three measures, which put the Gov- 
ernment of Mr. Lincoln on the verge of committal to the entire doctrine of 
Abolitionists, and plainly informed the Southern people of the real animiia 
of the war. 

Naval and military officers were prohibited, by an additional article 
of war, under penalty of dismissal from the service, from employing the 
forces under their command for the purpose of returning fugitive slaves. 

In accordance with the recommendation of the President, a joint reso- 
lution was passed, declaring that the United States ought to co-operate 
with any State which may adopt the gradual abolition of slavery, by 
giving pecuniary aid to such State. 

The third step was the forcible abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia. By this act all persons held to service or labour within the 
District, by reason of African descent, were freed from all claim for such 
service or labour ; and no involuntary servitude, except for crime, and 
after due conviction, should hereafter exist in the District. 

It is not M'ithin the design of this chapter or within the period of timo 
which it traverses, to follow further the record of the Washington Govern- 



NOKTHEKN BAD FAITH. 219 

mcnt on tlie subject of slaver3^ The crowning act of deception was re- 
Berved for another time. But the record had aheadj progressed far enough 
to assure the people of the South that the only safety for their domestic in- 
stitutions was in a separate and independent political existence ; that 
Northern liiith was only a thing of convenience ; that in the war the Con 
federates contended for no msre abstractions, but had at stake all theil 
substantial rights and nearly every element of individual happiness. 

There was a good deal of curious commentary in Southern newspapers 
how, step by step, the war of the North had changed its objects. But in 
a broad historical sense the explanation is obvious. History has shown 
that in all great civil commotions it is the most violent party, the party 
whose aim is most clearly defined, that gradually obtains the upper hand. 
It was thus that the Abolition party in the North gradually ascended, 
through four years of commotion and contest, and hnally obtained the 
entire control of the war, and dictated its consequences. 

We have referred to that public sentiment in the Southern Confed- 
eracy which about the time of the foundation of its Permanent Govern- 
ment came forward witli fresh support of the war, and a new resolution for 
its prosecution. Happily, although this sentiment found but little encour- 
agement on the part of President Davis, and was neither directed nor 
em])loyed by him, it secured a medium of forcible expression and a channel 
of effective action through the new Confederate Congress summoned at 
Kichmond. The measures of this Congress constitute the most critical 
and interesting pages of the Confederate annals. It is perhaps not saying 
too much to declare that the vigour of this body saved the Confederacy, 
rallied the strength of the country, and put on a hopeful footing a war 
which was languishing and almost in the last stages of neglect. 

The Congress which preceded it — what is known as the Provisional 
Congress — was perhaps the weakest body that had ever been summoned 
in a historical crisis. It was the creature of State conventions ; it was 
elected at a time when most of the ambition and virtue of the country 
were seeking the honours of the tented field ; it was composed of third- 
rate professional politicians, who had no resources beyond the emoluments 
of office, who were in a constant intrigue for patronage, and who had no 
higher legislative training than that of a back-door communication with 
the Executive. The measures of this Congress must ever remain a stock 
for ridicule, or the theme of severer criticism. All its legislative ingenuity 
appears to have been to make feeble echoes to the Federal Congress at 
Washington. The latter authorized an army of half a million of men. 
The Provisional Congress at Richmond replied by increasing its army on 
paper to four hundred thousand men, but doing nothing whatever to collect 
such a force, and still relying on the wretched shift of twelve months' vol- 
unteers and raw militia. The Congress at Washington passed a sweeping 



220 



THE LOST CAUSE. 



confiscation law. That at Eichmond replied by a " sequestration " act, 
wliicli, by corrupt amendments allowing the Confederate " heirs " of alien 
enemies to rescue and protect the property, was converted into a broad 
farce. It was annonnced with flonrishes ; it was said that it would sweep 
into the Confederate treasury tliree Imndred millions of dollars. Two 
years after the passage of this law its actual results were summed up by the 
Treasurer of the Confederate States as less than two millions of dollars ! 

A short while before the expiration of its official life the Provisional 
Congress passed a law, the effect of which was almost to disband our 
armies in the field, and put the Confederacy at the mercy of the enemy. 
Never Avas there such a silly and visionary measure of demagogueism ap- 
plied to tlie stern exigencies and severe demands of a state of war. The 
purpose was to persuade the twelve months' volunteers to re- enlist; and 
to do this Congress passed a law granting to those who pledged themselves 
to re-enlist for the term of the war a sixty days' furlough. This extraordi- 
nary measure was inspired by the military genius of President Davis, and 
was directly recommended by him. It depleted our armies in the face of 
the enemy ; it filled our military commanders with consternation ; it car- 
ried alarm, confusion, and demoralization everywhere. Our army near 
the line of the Potomac, mider the effect of this ill-timed and ill-judged 
law, was' melting like snow. The streets of Richmond were almost daily 
filled with long j)rocessions of furloughed soldiers moving from the raih'oad 
depots on their way home. Gen. Beauregard had taken the alarm before 
he left the Army of the Potomac, and had exhorted the men to stand by 
their colours. Gen. Johnston had published a general order on the sub- 
ject, and said as much as he could say on this subject of the exodus with- 
out discovering to the enemy the fearful decrease of his numbers, and in- 
viting an attack upon the thin military line that now formed the only de- 
fence of Richmond. 

Such was the condition of affairs when the Congress of 1SG2 took up 
the thread of Confederate legislation. It at once broke it, and commenced 
a series of measures of startling vigour. Its most important act was the 
Conscription law of the 16th of April, 18G2, from which properly dates the 
military system of the Confederacy, Previous to this the Confederacy had 
had nothing that deserved the title of a military system, and had relied on 
mere popular enthusiasm to conduct the war. When the suggestion was 
first made in the newspapers of Richmond of the harsh and unpopular 
measure of conscription, other journals, notoriously in the interest of the 
Administration, denounced it on the singular demagogical plea that it 
conveyed a reflection upon the patriotism of the country. Even in his 
inaugural address in February, President Davis had avoided the unpopu- 
larity of a conscription law, and had passed over the difficult question 
with the general phrase that troops must be enlisted for long terms instead 



THE CONSCKIPTION LAW. 221 

of short ones, for which thej had hitherto taken the field. But it was no 
time to hesitate for popnlarity, and to entertain tlie prejudices of the igno- 
rant, when the entire fortunes of the country were at stake. Tlie Conscrip- 
tion law was barely in time to save the Confederacy. At another period, 
the Confederate Secretary of "War stated that thirty days ,'ifter the passage 
of this law, the terms of one hundred and forty-eight regiments woidd 
have expired, and left us at the mercy of an enemy which had every 
guaranty of success that numbers, discipline, complete organizatiou, and 
perfect equipment could effect. 

The law of the 16th of April withdrew every non-exempt citizen, be- 
tween the ages of eighteen and thirty-five jears, from State control, and 
placed him absolutely at the disposal of the President during the war. It 
annulled all contracts made with volunteers for short terms, holding them 
in service for two years additional, should the war continue so long. All 
twelve months' recruits below eighteen and over thirty-five years, who 
would otherwise have been exempted by this law, were to be retained in 
service for ninety days after their term expired. In every State one or 
more camps of instruction, for the reception and training of conscripts, was 
established ; and to each State an officer, styled a commandant of con- 
scripts, was appointed, charged with the supervision of the enrollment and 
instruction of the new levies. The conscription law, besides its great value 
for recruiting service, gave solidity to the military system of the Confed- 
eracy, and centralized the organization of the army. Its efficiency in these 
respects was assisted by the appointment of lieutenant-generals, some com- 
manding separate departments, and others heading army corps under a 
general in the field. The policy of organizing the brigades with troops 
and generals from the several States was pursued, as opportunities offered, 
without detriment to the public service. 

Accompanying this great military reform in the Confederacy, there 
were other measures which gave evidence of awakened attention to the 
exigencies of the war. Laws were passed to ensure the destruction of all 
cotton and tobacco likely to come into possession of the enemy. The au- 
thorities were authorized to destroy these great staples of Southern produc- 
tion to keep it from the enemy ; and owners destroying them for the same 
purpose were to be indemniffed upon proof of the value and the ciicum- 
^tances of destruction. A bill was passed for partisan service, intended as 
a premium for adventure in the war, authorizing the formation of bands of 
rangers, who were to have a designated share of all captures from the 
enemy.* 

These and like measures indicated a new scale of operation in the war, 

* It was an affectation of the enemy, in subsequent periods of the war, to entitle this portion of 
the Confederate forces " guerillas," and to apply this term generally to whatever bodies of Coufeder- 



222 THE LOST CAUSE. 

and a new spirit in the conduct of hostilities. They were to show resultd 
in a few months. The campaign of 1862 covered the whole of a huge ter- 
ritory, and could only be decided by movements involving great expendi- 
ture of troops and time ; while the bitter exhibitions of the North had 
envenomed the war, aroused the spirit of retaliation, and swelled the san- 
guinary tide of conflict. 

"We have seen that the Permanent Government of the Confederate 
States was inaugurated at a dark period of its fortunes. The military his- 
tory closely following this event is not a little curious. It may be charac- 
terized as an alternation of light and shade ; across the tract of disaster 
there being sudden and fitful gleams of light, such as the undaunted cour- 
age of our troops and the variable accidents of war might give in such 
circumstances of misgovernment as Avere adverse or embarrassing to a 
grand scale of successes. Of these, and of the reverses mingled with them, 
we shall proceed to treat in the resumption of the military part of our 
narrative ; reaching, at last, through this alternation of victory and defeat, 
the point of that grand effulgence of our arms, that made the year 1862 
the most memorable in Confederate annals. 



THE TKAJSfS-MISSISSIPPI. BATTLE OF ELK HORN. 

\Ve left Gen. Price at the close of the Miss-ouri campaign proper, halt- 
ing his weary column at Springfield. While recruiting and drilling his 
men, Price watclied for the first movements of the enetny, and early in 
January, 1862, the Federals began to advance. Price had taken up a strong 
position and fortified it, expecting that McCulloch would move forward 
to his assistance ; but that commander did not stir, or make the slightest 
diversion in his favour ; so that, finding the enemy closing in upon him 
rapidly, he withdrew from Springfield, and was obliged to cut his way 
through towards Boston Mountain, where McCulloch was reported to be. 
This he successfully accomplished, with some desultory fighting. Mean- 
while Maj.-Gen. Earl Yan Doru had been appointed by President Davis 
to take command in the Trans-Mississippi Department, and had arrived 

ate cavalry were particularly troublesome. The following resolution, in relation to partisan service, 
was adopted by tlie Virginia Legislature, May 17, 1S62 : 

" Whereas, this General Assembly places a high estimate upon the value of the ranger or partisan 
service in prosecuting the present war to a successful issue, and regards it as perfectly legitimate ; 
and it being understood that a Federal commander on the northern border of Virginia has intimated 
his purpose, if such service is not discontinued, to lay waste by fire the portion of our territory at 
present under his power, 

" Resolved, by the General Assembly, That in its opinion, the policy of employing such rangera 
and partisans ought to be carried out energetically, both by the authorities of this iState and of the 
Confederate States, without the slightest regard to such threats." 



THE BATTLE OF ELK HOEN. 223 

at Pocahontas, Arkansas. He resolved to go in person to take command 
of the combined forces of Price and McCulloch, and reached their head- 
quarters on the 3d of March. 

Van Dorn soon ascertained that the enemy were strongly posted on 
rising ground at a place called Sugar Creek, about sixty miles distant, hav- 
ing a force of some twenty-five thousand men, under Curtis and Sturgis. 
It was also reported that they did not intend to advance until the arrival 
of heavy reinforcements, which were rapidly moving up. Although not 
twenty thousand strong. Van Dorn resolved to attack them, and sending 
word to Albert Pike to hurry forward with his brigade of Indians, moved 
out of camp on the 4th of March, with Price and McCullocli's forces, his 
intention being to surround the enemy's advance, some eight thousand 
strong, under Sigel, at Benton vi lie. 

Sigel, however, made a skilful retreat, and efiected a junction with 
Sturgis and Curtis. On the Ttli of March, both armies were in full view 
of each other. Early in the morning, Yan Dorn had made every disposi- 
tion for attack, and the advance began. The enemy were strongly posted 
on high ground, as usual, their front being covered with a heavy body of 
skirmishers and artillery, but they gave way as the Confederates advanced 
in like order upon them, and fell back upon the main body. Price's forces 
constituted our left and centre, while McCulloch was on the right. 

To prevent the junction of reinforcements, known to be on the way, 
Van Dorn's attack was made from the north and west, his columns almost 
surrounding the foe. The fig])t was long and obstinate. About two 
o'clock. Gen. Van Dorn sent a dispatch to Gen. McCulloch, who was 
attacking the enemy's left, proposing to him to hold his position, while 
Price's left advance might be thrown forward over the whole line, and 
easily end the battle. Before the dispatch was penned. Gen. McCulloch 
had fallen ; and the victorious advance of his division upon the strong posi- 
tion of the enemy's front was checked by the fall of himself and Gen. 
Mcintosh, the second in command, in the heat of the battle, and in the full 
tide of success. 

Curtis and Sturgis, perceiving the confusion on the Confederate right, 
rallied their commands, and presented a formidable front ; the skilful 
Sigel covering the retreat in a slow and masterly manner. At one time 
during the day the enemy was thought to have been thoroughly beaten ; 
but he now retired in excellent order to other positions some miles to the 
rear. The Confederates encamped for the night nearly a mile beyond tho 
point where the enen)y had made his last stand, Gen. Van Dorn establish- 
ing his headquarters at the Elk Horn tavern. 

The success of the day had not been a decided one. The want of disci- 
pline in the various commands was painfully apparent to Van Doin. The 
camps of the enemy had been taken with many prisoners, stores, cannon, 



224 THE T.08T CAUSE. 

etc. ; and the men were so excited witli tlieii* success that it was impofr- 
sible to form them into line for exigencies. Van Dorn, indeed, sarmised 
that reiuforcemcnts had reached the enemy in great number, and felt him- 
self too weak to accept another engagement on the morrow, should the ene- 
my force one upon him. He therefore ordered the sick far to tlie rear, 
and, destroying so much of the booty as could not be transported, began 
to prepare for a retreat. At an early hour in the morning, he had made 
every disposition for falling back to a strong jDosition some seven miles to 
the rear, at which point his sujiplies of ammunition had halted. Covering 
this movement v/itli a w^ell-displayed disposition of force, the enemy were 
received with valor, and their advance checked. Sharp fighting ensued, 
but the enemy made but feeble efforts to move forward, satislied to occu- 
py the field after the second day's fight, while the Confederates retreated 
many miles from it. 

Gen. Van Dorn officially stated the Confederate loss in killed and 
wounded to be about six hundred, while that of the enemy was conjec- 
tured to be more than seven hundred killed, and at least an equal num- 
ber womided. Gen. Curtis, in his official report, gives no statement of his 
loss, and simply remarks that it was heavy. But the battle of Elk Horn 
had an importance beyond the measure of its casualties. It may be said to 
have decided for the present the question of Confederate rule in Missouri. 
Thereafter, for a considerable time, the Trans-Mississippi was to be a blank 
in the history of the war ; and the forces of Van Dorn and Price were to 
be summoned from what was supposed to be their special and immediate 
enterprise to a distant arena of conflict. 

While this battle M'as being fought on the distant and obscure theatre 
of the Trans-Mississippi, a scene was occurring not many miles from the 
Confederate capital, the most remarkable in the war. On the Stli of March, 
1862, the Confederates obtained their first important victory on the water 
• — an element where they had been supposed least able to compete with 
the enemy. 



NAVAL FIGHT IN HAMPTON EOADS. — THE VIKGINIA AND THE MONITOR. 

"We have heretofore referred to the limited naval resources of the Con- 
federates, and the feeble administration which employed and directed 
them. Naval enterprise in the Confederacy had been mainly occupied 
with the privateer service, from which the most extravagant results had 
been expected ; although so far it may be said that the only benefit which 
we derived from issuing letters of marque was the acknowledgment by the 
Federal government that the Confederates were actual belligerents, axd 



THE VIEGINIA AND THE MONITOR. 225 

that prisoners made from them on the sea as well as on the land were to 
be considered as prisoners of war. 

In the early summer of 1861 the Navy Department at Eichmond had 
designed an iron-clad war vessel, which for the long period of eight months 
was in course of construction at the Gosport navy yard. A plan originat- 
ed with Lieut. Brooke to convert the hull of the frigate Merrimac, which 
vessel had been scuttled and sunk by the Federals on their abandonment 
of Norfolk at the opening of the war, into a shot-proof steam battery, con- 
structed with inclined iron-plated sides and submerged ends. The plates 
to protect her sides were prepared at the Tredegar Iron Works at Rich- 
mond ; and their inclination and thickness, and form, were determined by 
actual experiment. The eaves of the casemates as well as the ends of 
vessels were submerged, and a ram was added as a weapon of offence. 

This novel naval structure carried ten guns, eight broadside, one at 
the bow, and one at the stern. The other vessels of the Confederate 
squadron in the James river, under command of Captain Buchanan, were 
the Patrick Henry, six guns ; the Jamestown, two guns ; the Kaleigh, 
the Beaufort and the Teazer, each of one gun. At the time of which we 
write a considerable naval force of the enemy had been collected in 
Hampton Beads, off Fortress Monroe. The fleet consisted of the Cumber- 
land, of 24 guns ; the Congress, 50 guns ; the St. Lawrence, 50 guns ; the 
Bteam-frigates Minnesota and Roanoke, 40 guns ; and was under the com- 
mand of Captain Marston, of the Roanoke. The Cumberland and the 
Congress lay off Newport News, about three hundred yards from the 
shore ; the Congress about two hundred yards south of the Cumberland ; 
whilst the remainder of the fleet were anchored off Fortress Monroe, about 
nine miles east of Newport News. AVith the force of twenty gims, Capt. 
Buchanan proposed to engage this formidable fleet, besides the enemy's 
batteries at Newport News, and several small steamers, armed with heavy 
rifled guns. Everything had to be trusted to the experiment of the 
Yirginia. It was an enterprise sufficient to try the nerves of any com- 
mander to make the first trial of the ofiensive and defensive powers 
of a single vessel in the presence of an enemy with such an armament, 
when the slightest flaw would have proved fatal. 

About eleven o'clcok in the morning of the 8th of March the Virginia 
east loose from her moorings at the Gosport navy yard, and made her way 
down Hampton Roads. On her approach being signalled, orders were 
immediately issued by Capt. Marston of the Roanoke for his own vessel, 
the Minnesota, and the St. Lawrence to get under weigh. The Cumberland 
and Congress had previously perceived " the great Secesh curiosity," and 
had beat to quarters, and prepared for action. The Yirginia came slowly 
on, not making more than flve knots per hour, and accompanied by the 
Raleigh aiid Beaufort. • The pivot guns of the Cumberland opened on her 
15 



226 THE LOST CAUSE. 

at about a mile's distance. There was no reply ; the vessel moved tran 
qailly on ; hundreds of spectators at the wharves on both sides of the river 
watching her progress, and the crews of the enemy's frigates awaiting with 
derisive curiosity the singular iron roof bearing down upon them. As she 
passed the Congress at three hundred yards she received a harmless broad- 
side. " The balls bounced upon her mailed sides like India rubber." Re- 
turning the broadside, and in the midst of a heavy fire from the shore 
batteries, the Yirginia made straight for the Cumberland, which had been 
swung across the channel, to bring her full broadside to bear upon the ap- 
proaching enemy. It was a crisis wrapped in fire and smoke. Broadside 
after broadside of the Cumberland blazed out of her eleven nine-inch 
Dahlgrens. The Yirginia kept straight on, without returning a shot or 
showing a single man. Minutes seemed hours. Then there was a dull, 
heavy blow, and the iron-armed prow of the Yirginia had struck the Cum- 
berland near the bow, and below the water line. The frigate was driven 
back upon her anchors with great force ; a ragged hole had been opened 
into her in which a man might have passed ; the sound of the rush of 
water into her told that she was doomed. Still her crew manned her 
guns, and were prepared to give an example of courage among the most 
memorable and brilliant of naval warfare. The Yirginia had backed, and 
was now sweeping the decks of the Cumberland with broadside after 
broadside in merciless succession. But there was no sign of surrender on 
the part of the gallant enemy. As the ship canted over, just ready to 
sink, she still kept up her useless fire. Her last gun was fired just above 
the water, and as the brave gunner attempted to scramble out from the 
open port-hole, the water rushing swept him back, and he went down in 
the sinking vessel. Tlie Cumberland went down in fifty-four foot water, 
her pennant still flying from the mast-head above the waves that had 
ecigulphed her. Some of the crew succeeded in swimming to land, others 
were saved by small boats from the shore ; but more than one hundred 
men went down into the watery grave that closed over the gallant ship. 

Having sunk her first antagonist, the Yirginia next turned her atten- 
tion to the Congress, which was left to fight the battle alone, as neither 
the Minnesota, which had grounded about one mile and a half from New- 
port Kews, the Roanoke, nor the St. Lawrence could approach near 
enough, from want of sufficient depth of water, to render material assis- 
tance. Having witnessed the fate of the Cumberland, the commander of 
the Congress had hoisted sail, and with the help of a tug-boat had run 
the frigate ashore in water too shoal to permit the Yirginia to run her 
down. But the iron-clad, taking a position about two hundred yards 
from her, raked her fore and aft with shell, while the other small vessels 
of the Confederate squadron joined in the fire. Every shell burst inside 
the frigate. The eflect was awful. Blood and brains spurted in the air, 



THE VIRGINIA ANT} THE MONITOE. 227 

and liumaii bodies were cut in twain, or mangled in the most horrible 
manner. Arms, legs and hea-ds were scattered in every direction, while 
here and there in the agonies of death might be found poor wretches, 
with their breasts torn completely out. 

The Congress was fast aground, and could onl}'- bring two of her guns to 
bear on the Virginia, In a few moments her colours were hauled down, 
and a white flag hoisted at the gaff and half-mast, and another at the 
main. The little gunboat Beaufort was run alongside, with instructions 
from Capt. Buchanan to take possession of the Congress, secure the officers 
as prisoners, allow the crew to land, and burn the ship. The Congress 
was within rifle-shot from the shore, and as the Beaufort came alongside 
the prize, the enemy on the shore, having brought a Parrott gun down to 
the beach, opened uj^on the Confederate vessel a perfidious fire. The 
frigate liad two white flags flying at the time. Lieut. Minor was severely 
wounded, and several of the crew of the Beaufort. But there were other 
additions to this treachery, for when the Beaufort had first come along- 
side of the Congress, Lieut. Parker, commanding the gunboat, had received 
the flag of the ship, and her surrender from Lieut. Preudergast, with the 
side-arms of the other officers. After having delivered themselves as 
prisoners of war on board the Beaufort, the officers were allowed, at their 
own request, to return to the Congress to assist in removing the wounded. 
They never returned, though they had pledged their honour to do so, and 
in witness of that pledge had left their swords with Lieut. Alexander, on 
board the Beaufort. 

In the fire from the shore, Capt. Buchanan had received a severe 
wound in the thigh. He ordered the Congress to be destroyed by hot- 
shot and incendiary shell, her officers and crew having treacherously 
escaped to the shore ; and finding himself disabled by his wound, trans- 
ferred the command of the Virginia to Lieut. Catesby Jones, with orders 
to fight her as long as the men could stand to their guns. But there were 
now only two hours of daylight left. The Virginia bore down upon the 
stranded Minnesota. The Roanoke, after grounding, had gone down the 
Eoads. The St. Lawrence, in tow of a steamer, had approached the Min- 
nesota. She too grounded, and after receiving a single shell, and return- 
ing a harmless broadside, was dragged off, and steered down towards 
Fortress Monroe. The shoalness of the channel prevented the near ap- 
proach of the Virginia to her third antagonist ; but she continued to fire 
upon the Minnesota, until the pilots declared that it was no longer safe to 
remain in that position. 

At 7 p. M., the Virginia hauled off, and returned to Ts"orfolk, reserving 
for another day the completion of her work. She had already in a single 
half-day achieved one of the most remarkable triumphs ever made on the 
water. She had destroyed two powerful vessels, carrying three times her 



22S THE LOST CAUSE. 

number of men, and full six times her weight of armament ; she had en- 
gaged two other great vessels ; and she had only been prevented from 
destroying them, because she could not come to close quarters with them. 
The Cumberland went into action with 376 men. When the survivors 
were mustered there were only 255. She lost 121 in killed and drowned. 
The crew of the Congress were ^S'i officers and men ; of these, 298 got 
to shore, 26 of them being wounded, 10 mortally ; there were in all 120 
killed and missing ; about 20 of these were made prisoners, leaving a roll 
of killed and drowned of 100 men. Besides these, 3 were killed on the 
Minnesota, and 16 wounded ; an absolute loss of fully 250 officers and 
men. On the Virginia there were but two killed and eight wounded. 
On the other Confederate vessels four were killed and a few more 
wounded. 

Early in the bright morning of Sunday, the 9th of March, the Yirginia 
rounded the point of land at the mouth of the Elizabeth river. She ap- 
proached the Minnesota. But lying near the vessel which was still 
stranded and supposed to be doomed, was a curious object, which some of 
the crew of the Virginia straining their eyes compared to a prodigious 
" cheese-box on a plank." It was another iron-clad — the enemy's experi- 
ment in naval architecture, which had come just in time to match the Con- 
federate curiosity in floating batteries. 

The new actor on the scene which had come in such a dramatic coin- 
cidence was a defensive structure, the invention of John Ericsson. He 
liad named the invention the Monitor, in order to " admonish the South 
of the fate of the rebellion, Great Britain of her fading naval supremacy, 
and the English government of the folly of spending millions in fixed forti- 
fications for defence." She was difierent in appearance from any vessel 
that had previously been used in war. Her deck, unprotected by any bul- 
wark, rose about two feet above the water, whilst from it projected a 
turret about nine feet high, and a small box-looking place at the stern, 
used as a pilot-house. In the turret she carried her sole armament — two 
eleven-inch 168-pounder Dahlgi*en guns. 

Tlie two strange combatants approached each other ; when within about 
one hundred yards' distance the Monitor opened fire. The contest con- 
tinued for the space of two hours, the distance between the two vessels 
varying from half a mile to close quarters, in which they were almost side 
to side, belching out their fire, the heavy thugs on the iron sides of each 
being the only effect of the terrific cannonade. The strange-looking bat- 
tery, with its black, revolving cupola, was more easily turned than the 
Virginia, and had the greater speed. The great length and draft of the 
Virginia rendered it exceedingly difficult to work her. Once in changing 
her position she got aground, but succeeded in getting afloat again, and 
turning rapidly upon the Monitor steamed directly at her, hoping with 



THE VIEGmiA AND THE MONITOK. 229 

her terrible armed prow to end the contest. But the blow was not fairly 
given, and merely scraped the iron jjlates of her antagonist. 

About noon the Monitor, probably rather in consequence of an injnry 
that had almost blinded the sight of her commander than of any serious 
damage to the vessel, ran into shoal water and declined the further prose- 
cution of the contest. The captain of the Minnesota then supposed that 
his hour was come, and prepared to destroy ratlier than surrender his 
vessel. But it had been found impossible by the Virginia to get nearer 
the- Minnesota than she had the day before, and supposing that her guns 
had already disabled the frigate, she retired slowly from the scene of con- 
test and returned to Norfolk. 

The results of this day were indecisive, although there can be no doubt 
of the retreat of the Monitor ; but each vessel had given proofs of invul- 
nerability, which left their claims to advantage in the contest undecided. 
The injuries of the Virginia in the two days' fight were immaterial. Two 
of her guns had the muzzles shot off, the anchor and the flagstafFs were 
shot away, the smoke-jack and steam-pipes were riddled, the prow was 
twisted, and the armour somewhat damaged ; but, with the exception of 
the injury done to her ram, she had suffered none other but what might 
be repaired in a few hours. 

"With reference to this wonderful contest in Hampton Beads the news- 
papers announced the conclusion that wooden ships were to be of no farther 
use in naval warfare, and that the great navies which France and Great 
Britaiu had built at such an immense cost were j)ractically annihilated. 
Whatever haste there might be in this conclusion, the Government at 
Washington showed its early appreciation of the lesson in Hampton 
Roads. Almost immediately on the result of the action becoming known, 
a bill was introduced into the Senate to authorize the Secretary of the 
Navy to construct various iron vessels, both for coast and harbour defences, 
and also for offensive operations against the enemy's forts. The two com- 
batants — the Virginia and the Monitor — which had given a sensation to 
the whole world, and turned the attention of every European government 
that had a strip of sea-coast to defend to the experiment of iron-clads, 
were never again engaged in contest. The first continued by her presence 
at Norfolk to guard the entry into James River, and was thought of such 
importance with respect to the Peninsular approach to Richmond that 
Gen. McClellan, who, as we shall see some months later, turned his design 
on Richmond in this direction, named as one of the preliminary condi- 
tions of the new campaign that this vessel should be " neutralized." She 
was to be " neutralized " in a way little expected by the Confederate public. 

We may find in the close of this chapter an apppropriate place for a 
summary account of some other naval events belonging to this period of 
time in our narrative. 



230 THE LOST CA.USE. 



CAPTUKE OF NEWBERN, &C. 



Tlie objects of Gen. Buriiside's expedition were not accomplished with 
the capture of Koanoke Island. These objects, as stated in a memorandum 
furnislied by Gen. McClellan, who directed the expedition as part of a gen- 
eral campaign for 1862, were an assault on Newbern, and, if possible, the 
destruction of the southern line of railroad through Goldsboro', and the Wil- 
mington and "Weldon railroad. The town of Beaufort, defended by Fort 
Macon, was next to be attacked, and the port opened, whilst operations 
against Wilmington were pointed to as the eventual objects of the expedi- 
tion. On March 12th, the expedition started from Hatteras Inlet for its 
new object of attack. The troops were disembarked the next day eighteen 
miles below ^Newborn, and at daylight of the 14th advanced upon the 
Confederate works four miles below the town. These consisted of a line 
of detached forts of low relief. The entire Confederate force, under com- 
mand of Gen. Branch, did not exceed five thousand men — a great part of 
them militia — and had to contend against an enemy outnumbering them 
at least three to one. 

Fort Thompson was the most formidable fortification on the river, and 
mounted thirteen heavy guns. An attempt was made to storm the work, 
which was repulsed, and four Massachusetts companies which entered the 
fort from the railway track were driven ont over the parapet. Another 
attempt was made, with increased numbers ; and perceiving the enemy's 
ganboats moving up the river, and fearing that he would be surrounded. 
Gen. Branch ordered a retreat. It was commenced in good order, but 
finally became a rout. The guns of Fort Ellis were thrown down the 
embankment, Fort Lane was blown up, and the Confederates fled across 
the railway bridge over the ^N^euse. The bridge was fired by a raft laden 
with cotton and spirits of turpentine before the retreating column had 
passed over, and about five hundred prisoners were taken by the enemy. 
These, about fifty pieces of cannon, two small steamers, and large quanti- 
ties of arms and ammunition, were the immediate fruits of the enemy's 
victory, at a cost estimated in Burnside's report as 91 killed and 466 
wounded. The Confederate loss in killed and wounded was about one 
hundred and fifty. 

Shortly after the enemy's occupation of E'ewbern, the town of Wash- 
ington, situated at the mouth of Tar River, fell into their hands ; the bat- 
teries for its defence having been dismantled, and the entrenchments aban- 
doned by the small Confederate force that had been stationed there. 

On the 25th of April, Fort Macon, which commanded the entrance of 
Beaufort harbour, was bombarded by three of the enemy's steamers, and 
three siege batteries on the shore. There were not more than five Con- 



OAPTUKE OF NEWBEEN. 231 

federate companies in the fort, and after sustaining a fire of ten horn's they 
surrendered. 

The reduction of this fort gave the Federal navy a port of entry, and a 
harbour fitted for vessels of heavy draught. So far the Burnside expedi- 
tion had been a train of success. The Confederate position at Norfolk 
had been flanked ; complete possession had been gained of Albemarle 
and Pamlico Sound ; and now, by the fall of Fort Macon, the enemy had 
the entire coast of North Carolina. These blows on our coast disheart- 
ened the Confederacy, but, after all, they were of but little real value, and 
of scarcely any appreciable weight in the war. Burnside did not dare to 
pursue his enterprise into the interiour, and to follow out the programme of 
moving on the Weldon raiboad. The vital points of the Confederacy 
were far in the interiour, and as we had but few war vessels our ports and 
harbours were of but little importance to us for naval purposes, and were 
really but picket posts in our system of defence. 



CHAPTEE XIY. 



THE NEW LINE OF CONFEDEEATE DEFENCE SOUTH OF NASHVILLE. ITS OBJECTS. — OO-OPBRA.- 

TION OF JOHNSTON AND BEAUREGARD. — CAPTURE OF ISLAND NO. 10 BY THE ENEMY. — 
GEN. pole's EYACUATION OF COLUMBUS. — m'cOWN's OCCUPATION OF ISLAND NO. 10 AND 
NEW MADRID. — CONDITION OF THE DEFENCES AT THESE PLACES. — POPE MOVING ON 
NEW MADRID. — SMALLNES3 OF M'cOWN's FORCE. — POPE's STRENGTH IN AETILLEKT. — 
HIS occupation of point pleasant. — A TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT. — EVACUATION OF 
NEW MADRID. — EFFECT OF THIS MOVEMENT. — BOMBARDMENT OF ISLAND NO. 10. GAL- 
LANT DEFENCE OF EUCKER's BATTERY. — TRANSFER OF A PORTION OF m'cOWN's FORCES TO 

FORT PILLOW. HIS PREPARATIONS FOR RETREAT. GEN. MACKALL ASSIGNED TO THE 

DEFENCE OF THE ISLAND. — A CANAL CUT BY THE ENEMY ACROSS THE PENINSULA. — 
TWO GUNBOATS PASS THE ISLAND. — MACKALl's SURRENDER. — WRETCHED MANAGEMENT 
OF THE EVACUATION OF THE ISLAND. — GREAT LOSS OF CONFEDERATE ARTILLERY. — THE 
BATTLE OF SHILOH. — CONCENTRATION OF CONFEDERATE FORCES AT CORINTH. — GRANt's 
LINES AT PITTSBURG. — BUELL ADVANCING FROM NASHVILLE. — DESIGN OF THE CONFED- 
ERATES TO ATTACK BEFORE THE JUNCTION OF THESE FORCES. — UNFORTUNATE LOSS OF 
A DAY IN THE MARCH. — THE CONFEDERATE PLAN OF BATTLE. — THE ENEMY DRIVEN FROM 
HIS ENCAMPMENTS. — SPLENDID AND IRRESISTIBLE CHARGE OF THE CONFEDERATES. — 
TRAGICAL DEATH OF GEN. JOHNSTON. — THE CONFEDERATES PRESS ON IN THEIR CAREER OF 
VICTORY. — GRANT IN THE LAST EXTREMITY OF DEFEAT. — HE RETREATS TO THE BANKS OF 
THE TENNESSEE. — BEAUREGARd's ORDER FOR A CESSATION OF THE CONFLICT. — A FATAL 

HALT. — EXPLANATION OF IT. BEAUREGAEd's GREAT MSTAKE. — DEMORALIZATION OF HIS 

TROOPS BY PLUNDER. — BUELL's FORCES ACROSS THE TENNESSEE. — THE SECOND DAY's 

ACTION. — THE CONFEDERATES FALL BACK. OVERWHELMING FORCE OF THE ENEMY. — 

ODDS OF THE SECOND DAy's BATTLE. — THE ENEMY DOES NOT ATTEMPT A PURSUIT. — A 
FRIGHTFUL SUM OF CARNAGE. — BEAUREGAED's CLAIM OF SUCCESS. — FEDERAL INTERPRE- 
TATION OF THE BATTLE. — EXULTATION AT WASHINGTON. — DEATH OF JOHNSTON, A 
SERIOUS LOSS TO THE CONFEDERACY. — SKETCH OF HIS MILITARY LIFE. — PRESIDENT DAVIs' 
TEmUTE TO THE FALLEN HERO. — HIS OBSEQUIES IN NEW ORLEANS. 

Since falling back to Murfreesboro', Gen. Johnston had managed, by 
combming Crittenden's division and the fugitives from Donelson, to collect 
an army of seventeen thousand men. His object was now to co-operate 
with Gen. Beanregard for the defence of the Valley of the Mississippi, on 
a line of operations south of Nashville. The line extending from Colum- 
bus, by way of Forts Henry and Donelson, had been lost. The disaster 



CAPTCEE OF ISLAND NO. 10. 233 

had involved the surrender of Kentuckj'-, and a large portion of Tennessee 
to the enemy ; and it had become necessary to re-organize a new line of 
defence south of Nashville, the object of which would be to protect the 
railroad system of the Southwest, and to ensure the defence of Memphis 
and the Mississippi. 



CAPTUKE OF ISLAND NO. 10 BY THE ENEMY. 

Another concern was to put the Mississippi River in a state of com- 
plete defence ; and on abandoiring Columbus, it was decided to take a 
strong position about forty-live miles below it at Island No. 10. Gen. 
Polk, with the greater part of the garrison, retired to-\vards Jackson, Ten- 
nessee, and Gen. McCown, with the remainder, was ordered to occupy and 
hold Island 10 and Madrid Bend. 

When Gen. McCown arrived at the Island, he found it nearly destitute 
of defences. He reached there about the 24th of February, with Col. 
Kennedy's 21st Louisiana Eegiment. At that time there were no batteries 
on the Island, and only two, partially armed and in bad working order, on 
the Tennessee shore. Col. Kennedy was ordered to commence fortifying 
the position immediately. The only fortilication at jSTew Madrid, was Fort 
Thompson, a small earth-work under the command of Col. E. W. Gantt. 
Gen. McCown immediately laid off, and ordered the construction of Fort 
Bankhead, at the mouth of Bayou St. John, which makes into the Missis- 
sippi just above New Madrid. Between the 25th of February and the 1st 
of March he was followed by a detachment of the forces from Columbus. 
The whole force at the two points — Island 10 and New Madrid — consisted 
of about fourteen regiments, some of them greatly reduced. This force 
was about equally divided between the two points. 

On the first of March the enemy's cavalry appeared before New 
Madrid, and it was definitely ascertained that Gen. Pope was moving on 
that place, with a large force. lie was not long in making his appearance. 
The Mississippi River was open to the gunboats of the enemy, down to 
Island 10, and the Confederate works there, for want of time, had not been 
completed. To hold both places, the Confederates had not more than five 
thousand effective men, and five or six wooden gunboats, under Commo- 
dore Ilollins. 

Despite the unfavourable prospect, Gen, McCown commenced an ener- 
getic course of operations. At New Madrid, Fort Bankhead was finished 
and strengthened, as was Fort Thompson by an abattis in front. Batteries 
and magazines were put in course of erection, and guns mounted daily at 
the Island. Such arrangements for securing stores and taking care of the 
sick, as the circumstances permitted, were promptly made. 



234 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Heavy skirmishing commenced at New Madrid about the first of 
March, and continued daily up to the 13th. The enemy liad brought 
across with him a large train of artillery, including a number of 32- 
pounders, with which he made frequent attacks on the forts. These at- 
tacks were handsomely met ; our gunboats participating in tlie conflict. 
The enemy established himself on the river below New Madrid, at Point 
Pleasant and other places, for the purpose of annoying our transports, and 
cutting off communication between New Madrid and Memphis. 

During these thirteen days Gen. McCown was most active in his move- 
ments — passing from one point to the other, as he deemed his presence 
necessary — superintending the erection of batteries at the Island, and 
directing operations at New Madrid. Up to the 12th of March, the lines 
of the enemy had been gradually approaching our works at the latter 
place. The skirmishing and artillery conflicts had been continual and 
severe. 

At midnight on the 12th, the enemy opened a fierce bombardment. 
The scene was terribly grand. A large number of the enemy's batteries 
were in full play, and were fiercely replied to, by all the guns from our 
forts and boats. The darkness, the hoarse voice of the wind, the rush 
of the waters, the roar and flash of the guns from the shore and from the 
river, made a scene exceeding all description. This bombardment con- 
tinued but a short time, and soon the echoes of the last gun had died upon 
the waves ; and the winds, and the sullen tones of the Mississippi were the 
only sounds that disturbed the silence of the night. 

About daylight on the morning of the 13th the enemy again opened 
with their 24-poundurs and an 8-iuch howitzer. The principal point of 
attack was Fort Thompson, under the command of acting Brig.-Gen. E. 
W. Gantt, of Arkansas. This officer conducted the defence with skill and 
spirit, replying to the enemy so effectually as to dismount several of his 
guns. 

The firing continued at intervals during the afternoon, but entirely 
ceased about sunset. The result of these bombardments determined Gen. 
McCown upon the evacuation of New Madrid. Our wooden gunboats had 
Buftcrcd severely under the enemy's fire ; the garrison of New Madrid was 
small ; and Pope's batteries were in a position which prevented reinforce- 
ments from being brought up the river. 

On the night of the 13tli March there was a heavy storm of rain and 
thunder, and under cover of the darkness the Confederate garrison evacu- 
ated New Madrid, and sought shelter either with that of Island 10, or 
in the works on the left bank. Thus Pope obtained possession of New 
Madrid, was able to isolate Island 10 from the Lower Mississippi, and 
eagerly expected the surrender of the other defences. 

The evacuation was accomplished without any very serious loss. In 



CAPTUEE OF ISLAND 10. 236 

the midst of a furious rain, and in the face of a powerful army of tlie 
enemy, it was hardly possible to have everything brought off. Gen. Gantt 
laboured assiduously to save whatever he could, at Fort Thompson, and 
was himself among the last who embarked. Our greatest loss Nvas in 
heavy guns. These it was found impossible to get away; but they were 
spiked, and otherwise disabled. Some three or four transports were or- 
dered to each fort, to take oft' the troops and munitions. Gen. Walker's 
brigade, from Fort Bankhead, was landed at the foot of the highlands 
about four miles below the Island ; Gen. Gantt's from Fort Thompson, at 
Tiptonville. 

Eut although the Confederates had surrendered New Madrid so easily, 
they had no idea of giving up Island 10. We have already staled 
that when Gen. McCown reached the Island the position was nearly desti- 
tute of defences. Now there were live fine batteries erected on the Island, 
and well armed, and an equal number on the Tennessee shore — monnting 
in all nearly sixty guns. Magazines had been provided, the ammunition 
assorted and arranged, and everything put in readiness for action. 

From the Island to New Madrid by the river, it is about twelve miles 
— from New Madrid to Tiptonville about sixteen, and from Tiptonville 
across to the Island by land, about four miles. There was a river shore of 
twenty-seven miles, between the last two places, though they were in i'aet 
but a short distance apart. This shore had to be closely watched, for the 
enemy held possession of the Missouri side, from New Madrid to a jioint 
below Tiptonville. The brigades of Gantt and Walker were placed along 
the river, to guard it, with instructions to concentrate and drive the enemy 
back, if he should anywhere attempt a crossing. 

On the morning of the ITtli the enemy's fleet commenced shelling the 
Island at long range, to which the Confederates paid but little attention. 
About ten o'clock, however, they came within range, and opened on 
Kucker's battery. This battery was on the Tennessee shore, about a mile 
above the Island. It was located before Gen, McCown took command at 
the Bend, on rather low ground, but at an excellent point for commanding 
the river. The Mississijipi was very high, and this battery was separated 
from the others by a wide slough. The platform was covered with water, 
and the magazine unsafe from dampness. The attack was made by five 
iron-clad gunboats (three of them lashed together about the centre of the 
stream, and one lying near either shore) together with the whole mortar 
fleet. The conflict was terrific. For nine long hours, shot and shell fell 
in, over and around the battery, in horrible profusion — tearing \ip its 
parapet, and sending death through the company engaged in its defence. 
The men worked their pieces standing half-leg deep in mud and water. The 
company was small and the labour great. In the afternoon, Capt. Eucker, 
finding his men exhausted by fatigue, asked for reinforcements, which were 



236 THE LOST CAUSE. 

sent to him. For tliis purpose no detail was made, as a sufficient nnmber 
of volunteers were found to supply liis wants, and marched into the very 
jaws of death to the relief of their exhausted comrades. In the mean time, 
from fort and river, the conflict was still kept up with unabated fury. " It 
seemed more than could be hoped from mortal courage and endurance, 
that the battery should be worked against such terrible odds. But it was, 
and at last, about night-fall, the enemy was compelled to withdraw, with 
some of his boats for the time disabled. Rucker had the last shot at him, aa 
he retired up the river. The battery mounted five guns. Only two of 
them were in a condition to be worked, at the close of the fight. 

Gen. McCown, under orders from Gen. Beauregard, left the Bend for 
Fort Pillow, on the night of the 17th of March, with six regiments of in- 
fantry, Bankhead's light battery, and a part of Stuart's, embarking at Tip- 
tonville, and reaching the former place on the morning of the 18th. This 
movement was accomplished with such secrecy, that few, even of the 
officers remaining at the Bend, were aware of it until it was accom- 
plished. 

On the afternoon of the 19th, Gen. McCown was ordered to send from 
Fort Pillow three regiments, to report to Gen. Bragg, leave the re- 
mainder at that post, and return himself and re-assume command at Island 
10, which he immediately did. Upon returning to the Island, he found 
the enemy engaged in cutting a canal across the Bend, on the Missouri 
side, from a point three miles above the Island to Bayou St. John, for the 
purpose of communicating with New Madrid without having to run our 
batteries. From this time up to the 30th, the enemy continued to shell at 
long range, but without effect. Gen. McCown, in the mean time, made 
a full reconnoissance of the Bend. In his despatches he expressed confi- 
dence in his ability to repel the enemy's boats, if they should attack his 
batteries, but strongly intimated his doubts as to his being able to stop 
them if they attempted to run by. He was also busily engaged in build- 
ing flatboats and collecting canoes on Reetford Lake, ostensibly with the 
view of bringing over reinforcements, but actually for the purpose of secur- 
ing his retreat, should the enemy force a crossing in numbers sufficient to 
overwhelm his command, now reduced to less than two thousand effec- 
tive men. 

On the 1st of April, Gen. McCown was relieved, and Gen. Mackall 
assigned to the defence of the Island. In the mean time the enemy had 
busily progressed in his herculean enterprise of digging a canal twelve 
miles long, across the peninsula formed by the winding of the river. This 
work was fatal to the defence of the Island, for it enabled the enemy to 
take it in its rear. On the night of the 6th of April, Gen. Mackall moved 
the infantry and a battery to the Tennessee shore, to protect the landing 
from anticipated attacks. The artillerists remained on the Island. Tlie 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOn. 237 

enemy's gunboats had succeeded in passing the Island in a heavy fog ; he 
had effected a landing above and below the Island in large force ; and the 
surrender of the position had become a military necessity. 

But never was an evacuation so wretchedly managed. IS'one of the 
means of retreat prepared by Gen. McCown were used ; everything was 
abandoned ; six hundred men were left to their fate on the Island ; and 
the force transferred to the mainland was surrendered, except the few 
stragglers who escaped through the cane-brakes. 

The enemy captured Mackall himself, two brigadier-generals, six 
colonels, several thousand stand of arms, two thousand rank and file, sev- 
enty pieces of siege artillery, thirty pieces of field artillery, fifty-six thou- 
sand solid shot, six steam transports, two gunboats, and one floating bat- 
tery carrying sixteen heavy guns. The Southern people had expected a 
critical engagement at Island 'No. 10, but its capture was neatly accom- 
plished without it ; and, in the loss of men, cannon, ammunition, and sup- 
plies, the event was doubly deplorable to them, and afforded to the North 
such visible fruits of victory as had seldom been the result of a single 
enterprise. The credit of the success was claimed for the naval force under 
the command of Commodore Foote. The Federal Secretary of the Navy 
had reason to declare that " the triumph was not the less appreciated 
because it was protracted, and finally bloodless." The Confederates had 
been compelled to abandon what had been fondly entitled " the Little 
Gibraltar " of the Mississippi, and had experienced a loss in heavy artillery 
which was nigh irreparable. 

Meanwhile, Gen. Beauregard was preparing to strike a decisive blow 
on the mainland, and the movements of the enemy on the Tennessee Kiver 
were preparing the situation for one of the grandest battles that had yet 
been fought in any quarter of the war. 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH. 

In the early part of March, Gen. Beauregard, convinced of the enemy's 
design to cut off his communications in West Tennessee with the easterrx 
and southern States, by operating from the Tennessee River, detei-mined 
to concentrate all his available forces at and around Corinth. By the first 
of April, Gen, Jolmston's entire force, which had taken up the line of 
march from Murfreesboro', had effected a junction with Beam-egard, and 
the united forces, which had also been increased by several regiments from 
Louisiana, two divisions of Gen. Polk's command from Columbus, and a 
fine corps of troops from Mobile and Pensacola, were concentrated along 
the Mobile and Ohio railroad, from Bethel to Corinth, and on the Mem- 



238 THE LOST CAUSE. 

phis and Charleston raih'oad from Corinth to luka. The effective total of 
this force was slightly over forty thousand men.* 

It was determined with this force, which justified the offensive, to 
strike a sudden blow at the enemy, in position under Gen. Grant, on the 
west bank of the Tennessee Kiver, at Pittsburg, and in the direction of Sa- 
vannah, before he was reinforced by the army under Gen. Buell, then 
known to be advancing for that purpose, by rapid marches from Nashville. 
The great object was to anticipate the junction of the enemy's armies, then 
near at hand ; and on the night of the 2d of April, it was decided that the 
attack should be attempted at once, incomplete and imperfect as were the 
preparations of the Confederates for such a grave and momentous adven- 
ture. The army had been brought suddenly together, and there had been 
many difiiculties in the way of an effective organization. 

The enemy was in position about a mile in advance of Shiloh church — 
a rude, log chapel, from wliich the battle that was to ensue took its name 
— with the right restins; on Owl Creek and his left on Lick Greek. The 
army collected here was composed of the flower of the Federal troops, 
being principally Western men, from, the States of Illinois, Indiana, Wis- 
consin, and Iowa. 

It was expected by Gen. Beauregard that he would be able to reach 
the enemy's lines in time to attack him on the 5th of April. The men, 
however, for the most part, were unused to marching, the roads narrow, 
and traversing a densely-wooded country, which became almost impassable 
after a severe rain- storm on the 4tli, which drenched the troops in bivou- 
ac ; hence the Confederate forces did not reach the intersection of the road 
from Pittsburg and Hamburg, in the immediate vicinity of the enemy, 
until late in the evening of the 5tli ; and it was then decided that the 
attack should be made on the next morning, at the earliest hour prac- 
ticable. 

The Confederate plan of battle was in three lines — the first and second 
extending from Owl Creek on the left to Lick Creek on the right, a dis- 
tance of about three miles, supported by the third and the reserve. The 
first line, under Major-Gen. Hardee, was constituted of his corps, aug- 
mented on his right by Gladden's brigade, of Major-Gen. Bragg's coqjs. 
The second line, composed of the other troops of Bragg's corps, followed 

* It was composed as follows : 

First Army Corps, Major-Gen. L. Polk, 9,136 

Second Army Corps, Gen. B. Bragg, 13,589 

> Third Army Corps, Major-Gen. W. J. Hardee, 6,789 

Reserve, Brig.-Gen. John C. Breckinridge, 6,439 

Total infantry and artillery, '. 35,953 

Cavalry, Brig.-Gen. F. Gardner, 4,382 

Grand Total, 40,336 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH. 239 

the first at the distance of five hundred yards, in the same order as the 
first. The army corps under Gen. Polk followed the second line at the 
distance of about eight hundred yards, in lines of brigades, deployed with 
their batteries in rear of each brigade, moving by the Pittsburg road, the 
left wing supported by cavalry. The reserve, under Brig.-Gen. Breckin- 
ridge, following closely on the third line, in the same order, its right wing 
supported by cavalry. 

In the early dawn of Sunday, the 6th of April, the magnificent array 
was moving forward for deadly conflict, passing easily through the thin 
ranks of the tall forest ti*ees, which aflbrded open views on every side. 
But the enemy scarcely gave time to discuss the question of attack, for 
soon after dawn he commenced a rapid musketry fire on the Confederate 
pickets. The order was immediately given by the commanding General, 
and the Confederate lines advanced. Such was the ardour of the second 
line of troops, that it was with great difficulty they could be restrained 
from closing up and mingling with the first line. Within less than a mile, 
the enemy was encountered in force at the encampments of his advanced 
positions, but the first line of Confederates bruslied him away, leaving the 
rear nothing to do but to press on in pursuit. In about one mile more, he 
was encountered in strong force along almost the entire line. His bat- 
teries were posted on eminences, with strong infantry supports. Finding 
the first line was now unequal to the work before it, being weakened by 
extension, and necessarily broken by the nature of the ground. Gen. Bragg 
ordered his whole force to move up steadily and promptly to its support. 

From this time the battle raged with but little intermission. By half- 
past ten o'clock the Confederates had already captured three large encamp- 
ments, and three batteries of artillery. Their right flank, according to the 
order of battle, had pressed forward ardently, under the immediate direc- 
tion of Gen. Johnston, and swept all before it. Batteries, encampments, 
storehouses, munitions in rich profusion, were captured ; and the enemy 
was falling back rapidly at every point. His left, however, was his strong- 
est ground and position, and was disputed with obstinacy. 

Mile after mile the Confederates rushed on, sweeping the camps of the 
enemy before them. Gen. Johnston was in advance, before the troops of 
Breckinridge and Bowen. He had addressed them in a few brief words, 
and given the order to " Charge ! " when, at two o'clock, a minie-ball 
pierced the calf of his right leg. He supposed it to be a flesh wound, 
and paid no attention to it ; but the fact was that the ball had cut an 
artery, and as the doomed commander rode onward to victory, he was 
bleeding to death. Becoming faint from loss of blood, he turned to Gov. 
Harris, one of his volunteer aides, and remarked, " I fear I am mortally 
wounded." The next moment he reeled in his saddle and fainted. Gov. 
HaiTis received the falling commander in his arms, and bore him a short 



240 THE LOST CAUSE. 

distance from the field, into a ravine. Stimidants were speedily adminia- 
tered, but in vain. One of his staff, in a passion of grief, threw his arms 
ai'ound the beloved commander, and called aloud, to see if he would 
respond. But no sign or reply came, and in a moment or two more, he 
breathed his last. 

Information of the fall of Gen. Johnston was not communicated to tlie 
army. It was still pressing on in its career of victory ; and but little. 
doubt remained of the fortunes of the day. As the descending sun warned 
the Confederates to press their advantage, the command ran along the line, 
" Forward ! let every order be forward ! " Fairly in motion, they now 
swept all before them. I^either battery nor battalion could withstand 
their onslaught. Passing through camp after camp, rich in military spoils 
of every kind, the enemy was driven headlong from every position, and 
thrown in confused masses upon the river bank, beliind his heavy artillery, 
and under cover of his gunboats at the landing. He was crowded in 
unorganized masses on the river bank, vainly striving to cross. 

And now it might be supposed that a victory was to be accomplished 
such as had not before illustrated the fortunes of the Confederacy, The 
reserve line of tlie Federals was entirely gone. Their whole army was 
crowded into a circuit of half to two-thirds of a mile around the landing. 
They had been falling back all day. The next repulse would have put 
them into the river, and there were not transports enough to cross a single 
division before the Confederates would be upon them. 

It is true that the broken fragments of Grant's army were covered by a 
battery of heavy guns well served, and two gunboats, M'hich poured a 
heavy fire upon the supposed position of the Confederates, for they were 
entirely hid by the forest. But this fire, though terrific in sound, and pro- 
ducing some consternation at first, did no damage, as the shells all passed 
over, and exploded far beyond the Confederate position. 

At last, the order was given to move forward at all points, and sweep 
the enemy from the field. The sun was about disappearing, so that little 
time was left to finish the glorious work of the day. The movement com- 
menced with every prospect of success. But just at this time the astound- 
ing order was received from Gen. Beauregard to withdraw the forces 
beyond the enemy's fire ! The action ceased.* The different commands, 
mixed and scattered, bivouacked at points most convenient to their posi- 

* Of this abrupt termination to the business of the day, and the condition of the enemy at the 
time, a Confederate officer writes : 

" From some cause I could never ascertain, a halt was sounded, and when the remnants of the 
enemy's divisions had stacked arms on the river^s edge, preparatory to their surrender, no one 
stirred to finish the business by a coup de main. It was evidently ' drown or surrender ' with 
them, and they had prepared for the latter, until, seeing our inactivity, their gunboats opened furi- 
ously, and, save a short cannonade, all subsided into quietness along our lines." 



THP: BATILE OF SIIILOH. 241 

tions, and beyond the range of the enemy's guns. All firing, except a 
half-hour shot from the gunboats, ceased, and the night was passed iu 
quiet. 

Of this extraordinary abandonment of a great victory — for it can 
scarcely be put in milder phrase — Gen. Beauregard gives, in his official 
report of the action, only this explanation : " Darkness was close at hand ; 
officers and men were exhausted by a combat of over twelve hours without 
food, and jaded by the march of the preceding day through mud and 
water." But the true explanation is, tliat Gen. Beauregard was persuaded 
that delays had been encountered by Gen. Buell in his march from Colum- 
bia, and that his main force, therefore, could not reach the field of battle 
in time to save Gen. Grant's shattered fugitive forces from capture or de- 
struction on the following day. 

But in this calculation he made the great errour of his military life. 
"When pursuit was called off, Buell's advance was already on the other side 
of the Tennessee. A body of cavalry was on its banks ; it was the advance 
of the long-expected Federal reinforcements ; an army of twenty-five 
thousand men was rapidly advancing to the opposite banks of the river to 
restore Grant's fortune, and to make him, next day, master of the situa- 
tion. Alas ! the story of Shiloh was to be tluit not only of another lost 
opportunity for the South, but one of a reversion of fortune, in which a 
splendid victory changed into something very like a defeat ! 

As night fell, a new misfortune was to overtake Gen. Beauregard. His 
forces exliibited a want of discipline and a disorder which he seems to have 
been unable to control ; and with the exception of a few thousand disci- 
plined troops held firmly in hand by Gen. Bragg, tlie whole army degen- 
erated into bands of roving plunderers, intoxicated with victory, and scat- 
tered in a shameful hunt for the rich spoils of the battle-field. All during 
the night thousands were out in quest of plunder ; hundreds were intoxi- 
cated with wines and liquors found ; and while scenes of disorder and 
shouts of revelry arose around the large fires which had been kindled, and 
mingled with the groans of the wounded, Buell's forces were steadily 
crossing the river, and forming line of battle for the morrow. 

About an hour after sunrise the action again commenced, and soon the 
battle raged with fury. The shattered regiments and brigades collected 
by Grant gave ground before our men, and for a moment it was thought 
that victory would crown our eftbrts a second time. Oi\ the left, however, 
and nearest to the point of arrival of his reinforcements, the enemy drove 
forward line after line of his fresh trooj)s. In some places the Confeder- 
ates repulsed them by unexampled feats of valor ; but sheer exhaustion 
was hourly telling upon the men, and it soon became evident that num- 
bers and strength would ultimately prevail. By noon Gen, Beauregard 
had necessarily disposed^ of the last of his reserves, and shortly therealtei 
16 



242 THE LOST CAUSE. 

he determined to withdraw from the unequal conflict, securing such of the 
results of the victory of the day before as was then practicable. 

As evidence of the condition of Beauregard's army, he had not been 
able to bring into the action of the second day more than twenty thousand 
men. In the first day's battle the Confederates engaged the divisions of 
Gen. Prentiss, Sherman, Hurlburt, McClernand and Smitli, of 9,000 men 
each, or at least 45,000 men. Tliis force was reinforced during the night 
by the divisions of Gens. Nelson, McCook, Crittenden, and Thomas, of 
Buell's arm}^, some 25,000 strong, including all arms ; also Gen. L. Wal- 
lace's division of Gen. Grant's army, making at least 33,000 fresh troops, 
which, added to the remnant of Gen. Grant's forces, amounting to 20,000, 
made an aggregate force of at least 53,000 men arrayed against the Con- 
federates on tlie second day. 

Affainst such an overwhelming- force it was vain to contend. At 1 
p. M. Gen. Beanreo:ard ordered a retreat. Gen. Brecl\inrido;e was left with 
his command as a rear guard, to hold the ground the Confederates had oc- 
cupied the night preceding the first battle, just in front of the intersection 
of the Pittsburg and Hamburg roads, about four miles from the former 
place, while the rest of the army passed in the rear, in excellent order. 
The fact that the enemy attempted no pursuit' indicated his condition. He 
had been too sorely chastised to pui'sue ; and Gen. Beauregard was left at 
leisure to retire to Corinth, in pursuance of his original design to make 
tliat the strategic point of his campaign. 

The battle of Shiloh, properly extending through eighteen hours, was 
memorable for an extent of carnage up to this time unparalleled in the 
war. The Confederate loss, in the two days, in the killed outright, was 
],T28, wounded 8,012, missing 957; making an aggregate of casualties 
10,699. Of the loss of the enemy, Gen. Beauregard wrote : " Their casu- 
alties cannot have fallen many short of twenty thousand in killed, wound- 
ed, prisoners, and missing." 

Gen. Beauregard was unwilling to admit that the experience of the 
second day had eclipsed the brilliant victory which he so unfortunately 
left unfinished on the banks of the Tennessee. He declared that he had 
left the field on the second day " only after eight hours' successive battle 
with a superiour army of fresh troops, whom he had repulsed in every at- 
tack upon his lines, so repulsed and cri]">|)led, indeed, as to leave it unable 
to take the field for the campaign for wdiich it was collected and equippctd 
at such enormous expense, and with such profusion of all the appliances 
of war." On the otlier hand, the North inscribed Shiloh as its most bril- 
liant victory. An order of the War Department at Washington I'equired 
that at meridian of the Sunday following the battle, at the head of every 
regiment in the armies of tlie United States there should be ofi'ered 
by its chaplain a prayer, giving " thanks to the Lord of Hosts for the 



DEATH OF GEN. A.. S. JOHNSTON. 24:3 

recent manifestation of His power in the overthrow of the rebels and 
traitors." 

But whatever may be the correct estimation of the battle of Shiloh^ 
there was one event of it which Avas a most serious loss to the Confederacy, 
and an occasion of popular sorrow in every part of it. This was the death 
of Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston, the man especially trusted with the Con- 
federate fortunes in -the West, esteemed by his Government as the military 
genius of his country, and so gifted by nature with dignity, and with 
power over men, that it was said he was born to command. Tiiis illus- 
trious commander had already figured in many historical scenes, and up to 
the period of his death had led one of the most eventful and romantic mili- 
tary lives on the continent. He had served in the Black Hawk war. In 
the Texan war of independence, he entered her army as a private soldier 
Subsequently he was made senior brigadier-general of the Texan army 
and was appointed to succeed Gen. Felix Houston in the chief command. 
This led to a duel between them, in which Johnston was wounded. In 
1838, he was chosen Secretary of War of the new Bepublic under Presi- 
dent Lamar ; and the following year he organized an expedition against 
the Cherokee Indians. He subsequently settled on a plantation in Texas, 
and for several years remained there, leading the quiet life of a planter. 

When the Mexican war broke out, he, once more, in 1846, and at the 
request of Gen. Taylor, resumed his profession of arms, and sought the 
battle-field. He arrived in Mexico shortly after the battles of Resaca and 
Palo-Alto, and was elected colonel of the first Texas re2:iment. After that 
regiment was discharged, he was appointed aide and inspector-general to 
Gen. Butler ; and in that capacity he was at the famous battle of Mon- 
terey, and, during the fight, his horse was three times shot under him. 

After the Mexican war, he obtained the appointment of paymaster of 
the regular army, with the rank of major. When the army was increased 
by four new regiments, Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, gave him 
command of the Second Cavalry, with his headquarters at San Antonio, 
Texas. In the latter part of 1857, ho was appointed by President Buchan- 
an to the command of the Utah expedition, sent to quell the Mormons. In 
the spring of 1858, he crossed the plains, and arrived at Salt Lake City, 
where, in consequence of his services, he was brevetted brigadier-general, 
and full commander of the military district of Utah. He was subsequently 
sent to California, and assumed command of the Department of the Paci- 
fic. There the commencement of the war found him ; and on learning of 
the secession of his adopted State, Texas, he resigned his position in the 
United States army, and at once prepared to remove South, to espouse the 
cause of the Confederacy. 

The Federal authorities had taken measures to arrest him, or, at least, 
to intercept his passage by sea. But he eluded their vigilance by taking 



244: THE LOST CAUSE. 

the overland route, "Willi three or four companions, increased afterwards 
to one hundred, on mules, he proceeded by way of Arizona, passed through 
Texas, and arrived at 'New Orleans in safety. This was in August, 18^1, 
and, immediately proceeding to Kichmond, he was assigned to the com- 
mand of the Department of the Mississippi. 

In the early part of the western campaign. Gen, Johnston had fallen 
under the censure of the newspapers. It has been said that this censure 
preyed upon his mind ; but if it did, he thought very nobly of it, for in a 
private letter, dated after the retreat from Bowling Green, and the fall of 
Fort Donelson, he wrote : " The test of merit, in my profession, with the 
people, is success. It is a hard rule, but I think it right." But a few days 
before the battle in which he fell, he expressed a resolution to redeem his 
losses at no distant day. 

ISTo more beautiful tribute could have been paid to the memory of the 
departed hero, than that made by Jefferson Davis himself ; and no more 
choice and touching language ever came from the polished pen of the Con- 
federate President, than on this occasion. He announced the death in a 
special message to Congress. He said : " Without doing injustice to the 
living, it may safely be said that our loss is irreparable. Among the 
shining hosts of the great and good who now cluster around the banner of 
our country, there exists no purer spirit, no more heroic soul, than that of 
the illustrious man w^hose death I join you in lamenting. In his death he 
has illustrated the character for which, through life, he was conspicuous — 
that of singleness of purpose and devotion to duty with his whole energies. 
Bent on obtaining the victory which he deemed essential to his country's 
cause, he rode on to the accomj)lishment of his object, forgetful of self, 
while his very life-blood was fast ebbing away. His last breath cheered 
his comrades on to victory. The last sound he heard was their shout of 
victory. His last thought was his country, and long and deeply will his 
country mourn his loss." 

The remains were carried to jSTew Orleans. They were laid in state in 
the mayor's parlour, and the public admitted. The evidences of the public 
sorrow were most touching, Flowers, the testimonies of tender affection, 
encircled liis coffin simply, but beautifully. And, attended by all the 
marks of unaffected grief, with gentle hands and weeping eyes movino 
softly around him, the great commander, with his sheathed sword still b"» 
his side, was borne to his final and eternal rest. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE MILITARY SITUATION OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. — THE FALL OF NEW ORLEANS. A LCjffl 

TRAIN OF SECRET HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE ADMINISTRATION. SENSE OF SECUEITlf 

IN NEW ORLEANS. STRANGE ERROUR OF THE RICHMOND AUTHORITIES. GEN. LOVELl's 

CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE WAR DEPARTMENT. — STARTLING DISCLOSURES. — NAVAX 

STRUCTURES FOR THE DEFENCE OF NEW ORLEANS. SECRETARY MALLORY's STATEMENT TO 

THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS. — TESTIMONY OF GOV. MOORE, OF LOUISIANA. — HIS INTERPO 
SITION WITH THE SHIP-BUILDERS. — THE IRON-CLADS MISSISSIPPI AND LOUISIANA. — CONDI- 
TION OF THE DEFENCES OF NEW ORLEANS IN APRIL, 1862.— THE RIVER OBSTRUCTED BY A 
RAFT. — FARRAGUT's FLEET AT THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI. — FESTIVITY IN NEW 

ORLEANS. BOMBARDMENT OF FORTS JACKSON AND ST. PHILIP. — PASSAGE OF THE FORTJ 

BY THE enemy's VESSELS. — THE CONFEDERATE GUNBOATS ALL DESTROYED. — CONFUSION 
AND PANIC IN NEW ORLEANS. GREAT CONFLAGRATION IN THE CITY. — A SCENE OF TERRI- 
BLE GRANDEUR. LOVELl's EVACUATION OF NEW ORLEANS. DISORDER IN NEW ORLEANS. 

FARRAGUt's CORRESPONDENCE WITH MAYOR MONROE. WHY THE MAYOR PROTRACTED 

THE CORRESPONDENCE. — A NEW HOPE OF DEFENCE. — SURRENDER OF FORTS JACKSON AND 

ST, PHILIP. — GEN. Duncan's speech on the levee, — farragut's ultimatum. — hoist- 
ing OF THE STARS AND STRIPES OVER NEW ORLEANS. — WHAT THE FALL OF NEW ORLEANS 
INVOLVED. — NOTE : GEN. LOVELL's REASONS FOR EVACUATING NEW ORLEANS. — RULE OP 
BUTLER IN THE CONQUERED CITY. — CHARACTER AND PERSON OF " THE TYRANT OF NEW 
ORLEANS." "the WOMAN-ORDER." ARREST OF MAYOR MONROE AND OF VARIOUS CITI- 
ZENS. — BUTLER ON FEMALE SECESSIONISTS. HIS OPINION OF " SHE-ADDERS." CONFISCA- 
TIONS, FINES, AND PLUNDER. — BUTLEr's DECOY FOR ASSASSINS. — THE HANGING OF MUM- 
FORD. — HIS SPEECH ON THE GALLOWS. — GENERAL EXPERIENCE IN THE CONFEDERACY OF 

THE enemy's ATROCITY. NEW CODES AND METHODS OF WAR.— PROGRESS OF FEDERAL 

CRUELTY. 

TuE Confederate public had been disposed to find some consolation 
for the disaster at Island No. 10 in the brilliant, thongh nufniitful story 
ofShiloh. It was considered, too, that the river below Fort Pillow was 
safe ; and that while the arrny at Corinth covered Memphis, and held the 
enemy in check on land, the rich and productive valley of the Lower 
Mississippi was yet secure to the Confederacy. 

But in the midst of these pleasing calculations and comparative re-assur- 
ance, a great disaster was to occur where it was least expected, which was 



246 THE LOST CAUSE. 

to astound the people of the South, to involve the practical loss of another 
mass of rich territory, and to alarm the hopes of men in all parts of the 
"world for the success of the Confederates. This unexpected event was the 
fall of New Orleans. 

With respect to this disaster, we have to develop a long train of the 
secret history of the Confederate Administration — a history replete with 
evidences of mismanagement and shiftlessness that will be almost incredible 
to the world accustomed to read of the administration of governments in 
time of war, and to expect, at least, an average of intelligence in the con- 
duct of public affairs. 



TUE FALL OF NEW 0KLEAN8, 

jSTew Orleans had been so long threatened with attack, that popular 
opinion in the Confederacy was disposed to take it as impregnable. For 
months the Federal fleet cruised about the Gulf with evident indecision, 
until people in New Orleans began to smile, and say : " They would think 
twice before attempting a rehearsal of the scenes of 1812." It was 
declared, on the authority of newspapers, that the city was inpregnable ; 
the forts, Jackson and St, Philip, sixty or seventy miles below the city, 
were considered but as the outer line of defences ; the shores of the river 
were lined with batteries ; and in the harbour were reported to be twelve 
gunboats, and certain iron-clad naval structures which, it was asserted, 
were superiour to the famous " Virginia," and would deal with a Federal 
fleet as hawks might with a flock of pigeons. 

But penetrating this popular conceit and confidence, and going to ofii- 
cial records for proofs, we shall discover that the facts were that New 
Orleans was in a shamefully defenceless condition ; that the Hichmond 
authorities had persisted in the strange errour that the attack on the city 
was to come from above ; that they had consequently stripped it almost en 
tirely of troops, and neglected the armament of its iuteriour line of defence ; 
and that the naval structures, which the authorities had declared would be 
fully able to protect the city under any circumstances, were, by the most 
wretched and culpable mismanagement, neglected, delayed, and finally 
found in a condition in which they were not of the slightest avail. 

Gen. Mansfield Lovell assumed command of the defences of ISTew 
Orleans late in October, 1861. The city at that time had been "drained 
of arms, ammunition, medical stores, clothing and supplies, which had been 
sent to other points," and the defences were in a thoroughly incomplete 
condition. The troops raised in Louisiana had been principally sent to 
Virginia and Pensacola, and those that remained were necessarily inade- 
quate to the end desired, and required organization. 



THE FALL OF NEW OELEAKS. 247 

Several vessels were in course of construction by the Navy Department, 
but according to the express orders of President Davis " the fleet main- 
tained at the port of JN'ew Orleans and vicinity formed no part of the com- 
mand of Gen. Lovell." The first step taken by that officer was to secure 
ammunition, of which there was less than twenty pounds per gun ; the 
?econd was to complete the " raft between Forts Jackson and St. Philip, so 
as to make a complete obstruction under the fire of those works." On the 
8th November, Gen. Lovell wrote to tlie Department that he had increased 
the armament of Forts Pike and Macomb, and thought he would be able 
to make a complete obstruction of the raft, so that if the enemy's ships 
should be stopped, they would be hammered to pieces. This obstruction 
was calculated to delay a " fleet under the close fire of more than one 
hundred heavy guns." Measures were also taken to obstruct the passage 
at Forts Pike and Macomb, and the river above the city, the commanding 
General " feeling satisfied that ships under steam can pass forts in an open 
channel." 

On the 5th December, 1861, a statement was made to the "War Depart- 
ment of the existing condition of aflairs, in which it was shown that the 
city was defended by two lines of works, for which Gen. Lovell had 8,000 
men, besides the militia of the city. Two powder mills were in running 
order, aiid the announcement was made that with a " sufticiency of this 
material, he should consider himself in a position to hold New Orleans for 
an indefinite length of time." The city was then strong enough to with- 
stand an}^ attack likely to be made, and Gen. Lovell stated that the enemy, 
who were at that time landing troops at Ship Island in large numbers, 
" could not take New Orleans by a land attack with any force they could 
bring to bear." 

In the beginning of January the attention of the Department was 
directed to the necessity of giving to the commanding General the control 
di' at least so much of the Navy Department as would enable him, by 
means of light-draught armed vessels, to protect tlie navigable streams 
along the coast ; Gen. Lovell adding, that " the blame of want of protec- 
tion will rest upon me in any event, and I should, therefore, have some 
power to say what should be done." No answer to this request was 
made. 

The Secretary of "War, about this time, furnished Gen. Lovell with the 
plan and details of the river defence fleet, under Montgomery, for '• seiTice 
in tlie upper Mississippi," which was to be prepared at New Orleans, by 
Capts. Montgomery and Townsend, and the General was directed " merely 
to exercise such general supervision as to check any profligate expendi- 
ture." 

On the 13th January, Gen. Lovell wrote, that "considering ]S'ew 
Orleans to be in condition to resist an attack, I am turning my attention 



248 THE LOST CAUSE. 

to tlie coast of Mississippi." The obstructions in the river at this time 
were complete, and the forts well manned. 

On the 8th of February, the Secretary of War wrote as follows : " Tlie 
President desires that, as soon as possible, on receipt of this letter, you 
despatch 5,000 men to Columbus to reinforce that point, sorely threatened 
by largely superiour forces. New Orleans is to be defended from above, 
by defeating the enemy at Columbus." Gen. Lovell replied : " I regret 
the necessity of sending away my only force at this particular juncture, 
and feel sure that it will create a great panic here, but will do my best to 
restore confidence by a show of strength." 

On the 27th February, Gen. Lovell notified the Secretary of War that 
he had sent " eight regiments and two batteries from his department, besides 
five hundred shot guns," and added : " People .are beginning to complain 
that I have stripped the department so completely ; but I have called upon 
Gov, Moore for 10,000 volunteers and militia for State service. Kaw 
troops with double-barrelled shot guns are amply sufficient to hold our 
entrenchments against such troops as the enemy can send to attack them." 

In the same letter he adverted to the fact that he had " furnished 
Gens. Johnston and Polk large supplies." In his letter of March 6th he 
stated : 

"This Department is being completely drained of everything. We 
have filled requisitions for arms, men and munitions, until New Orleans 
is about defenceless. In return we get nothing. Mobile and Pensacola, 
even Galveston, are defended by ten-inch columbiads, while this city has 
nothing above an eight-inch, and but few of them. The fortified line 
about the city is complete, but I have taken ten of the guns for the navy, 
and sixteen for the vessels that we are fitting up for the river expedition. 
My reliance to defend these lines will be with militia with double-bar- 
relled guns and 32-pound carronades. If now you take the powder from 
me, we shall be in no condition to resist. The only thing to provide is a 
sufficiency of powder, to enable us to resist a prolonged attack of ships and 
mortar boats upon two points. Forts Pike and Macomb, and Forts Jack- 
son and St. Philip. If the first are passed, we still have a land defence to 
make ; if the last, a fleet can proceed at once to the city." 

On the 9th, Gen. Lovell again wrote, after enumerating the troops 
sent away : 

" You will thus perceive that this Department has been completely 
stripped of every organized body of troops. Persons are found here who 
assert that I am sending away all troops so that the city may fall an easy 
prey to the enemy. All requisitions for ammunition have been filled, 
until I have none left, except what is in the hands of troops. Neither 
have I funds placed at my disposal to create supplies in place of those sent 
off. If the enemy intends au attack here, he will make it soon, and I 



THE FALL OF NEW ORLEANS. 249 

hope no further calls will be made imtil we are placed in a defensible 
condition." 

While this correspondence was going on between Gen. Lovell and the 
TVar Department, we shall see what had become of the naval structures 
in the harbour, that were calculated, as the Richmond authorities claimed, 
to allay all the fears of Gen. Lovell, and to assure, in any circumstances, 
the safety of Kew Orleans. Mr. Benjamin, the Secretary of War, had 
written to Gen. Lovell : " From the recent experiment of the "Virginia, 
and what I hear of the 'steamers of ISTew Orleans, I feel confident that if 
even one of them can be got ready before you are attacked, she will dis- 
perse and destroy any fleet the enemy can gather in the riv^er, above or 
below. The naval ofiicers say that Tift's steamer is far superiour to the 
Viro-inia." 

In the report of Mr. Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, made to the Con- 
federate Congress on the 2Yth of February, 1862, he had made the follow- 
ing statement : " There are now being constructed at New Orleans two 
large and formidable iron-plated steamsliips, of about fourteen hundred 
tons each, designed for the carrying of twenty of the heaviest guns. One 
of these, the Louisiana, has been launched, and is nearly completed, and 
the other, it is believed, will be completed in six weeks." 

With reference to the construction of these vessels we may place here 
the testimony of Gov. Moore of Louisiana, taken before a secret commit- 
tee of the Confederate Congress, not only for its interest to the immediate 
subject, but for its curious explanation of the way the affairs of the Con- 
federacy were managed. The following are extracts from his testimony : 

" My first active interposition, of which any record is kept, was on the 26th of Feb- 
ruary, 1862. Several weeks prior to that date I had been aware that the work on the 
ram Mississippi was not being prosecuted with the vigour and energy that our danger 
seemed to me to require. Many merchants and business men of New Orleans, and par- 
ticularly the Committee of Public Safety, had spoken to me of the slow progress of the 
work, but I had refrained fi-om any interference, except verbal expressions of my dis- 
satisfaction to the Commanding General, (Lovell) who in turn assured me he had 
nothing to do with the work. At length the excuse was given for this torturing want 
of vigour, that the work could not proceed faster lor want of funds. Tlie Navy Depart- 
ment had not paid its obligations, and, in consequence, had lost credit. I therefore 
telegraphed the Treasury Department as follows : 

"New Orleans, February 26tb, 18G2. 
" C. G. AfEMMiNGER, Secretary Treasury, Richmond : 

" The Navy Department here owes nearly a million. Its credit is stopped. If you wish, I will 
place two millions of dollars on aecouut of the war tax, to the credit of the Government, so that 
the debts can be paid, and the works continued. 

" [Signed] Thomas 0. Moore, Governor.'''' 

******** 
" One of th'e causes of the delay in completing the Mississippi was the insufficient 



250 THE LOST CAUSE. 

number of hands employed. I had long been sensible of this, but there was no ofBcet 
:)f the Government who seemed to feel authorized to interpose. I learned in April the 
excuse given was, that they conld not be obtained, and I instantly addressed a letter to 
the sbip-builders, of which the ftiUowing is an extract. Its date is April loth. 'The 
great importance of having at once completed the steam-ram Mississippi, induces me 
to call on you to fender Mr. Tift, the builder, all the assistance that can be advantage- 
ously employed for that purpose. It may be that tlie ship, completed and fitted in fif- 
teen days, as we hope will be done, may be worth to us as much, and perhaps more, 
than fifty thousand soldiers, as it is believed that she could clear the river of the whole 
United .States navy.' A large addition of workmen was instantly made, the ship-builders 
furnishing as many men as the Tifts were willing to receive. 

"Another cause of the delay was a failure of the Tift's to comprehend the fact that 
the city was in danger. I did not know, until after the city had fallen, that even if the 
wood-work had been completed, the means were not at hand to put her in fighting con- 
dition. I was subsequently informed that at the time the city fell, the plates for the ram 
were being manufactured in Atlanta, and her guns were scattered along tlie railroad 
from Weldun to Jackson, Avhich latter place they did not reach until weeks afterward." 

In the month of April, 1862, tlie condition cf the defences of New Or- 
leans was as follows : As against a land attack by any force the enemy 
could probably bring, the iuterionr line of fortifications, as adopted and 
completed by Major-Gen. Lovell, was a sufficient defence of the city, but 
his ability to hold that line against such an attack was greatly impaired 
by the withdrawal from him, by superiour authority, of nearly all his 
effective troops. The exteriour line was well devised, and rendered, as 
strong as the means of his command allowed. But the iron-clad gunboats, 
Louisiana and Mississippi, were not ready for service. In. this extremity it 
was indispensably necessary to obstruct the navigation of the Mississippi 
Eiver between Forts Jackson and St. Philip ; and to do this, a I'aft was 
completed under Gen. Lovell's direction. It consisted of a line of eleven 
dismasted schooners, extending from bank to bank, strongly moored, and 
connected by six heavy chains. 

The Federal fleet which threatened New Orleans, consisted of forty -six 
sail, canying two hundred and eighty-six guns and tsventy-one mortars ; 
the whole utider the command of Flag-othcer Farragut, The raft con- 
structed by Gen. Lovell was placed about a mi4e below Forts Jackson and 
St. Philip. Unfortunately, a chasm was rent in it by a severe storm ; and 
on the 16th of April, the enemy slowly steamed up the stream in strong 
force, and prepared to attack the forts. 

Still there was no alarm in New Orleans, as it was popularly supposed 
that the enemy only intended a bombardment of the forts, and would ac- 
complish but little in such an enterprise. Festivity prevailed in the city. 
Bails, parties, theatres, operas, and the like were the incidents of every 
twenty-four hours. Thousands flocked down the river, and on the levees 
viewed the bombardment with evident pleasure, for it was soon ascertained 



THE FALL OF NEW ORLEANS 251 

tliat the enemy's fire was inueenrate, and that few, if any, of tlieir eleven- 
inch sliell ever tonehed the forts. At night, the greatest vigihmce was 
maintained, to inform connnandei's of the enemy's movements. On the 
23d of Ajn-il, the terrific bombardment had continued a whole week ; the 
enemy liad thrown over twenty-tive thousand shells ; and Gen. Duncan 
reported that two of his guns in Fort Jackson were dismounted ; half a 
dozen killed and wounded was the total loss, and the works were as sound 
as ever. 

The evening of the 23d of April closed without unusual incident. Our 
defences were thought to be impassable, and strong hopes were entertained 
that Farragut would soon give up the conflict as fruitless and abortive. 
Towards three o'clock on the morning of the 24th, the enemy's vessels were 
descried creeping up the river in full force, and as they steamed abreast of the 
forts were received with deal'ening roars from our artillery. The conflict be- 
came furious. Through a storm of fire the ships passed on, Farragut lead- 
ing in the Hartford. They had not proceeded far when they encountered the 
Confederate fleet, consisting of seventeen vessels in all, only about eight of 
which were armed. The Confederate gunboats carried, some of them, two 
guns, and others only one. Nevertheless, they fought with desperation 
against the enemy's overwhelming force, until they were all driven on 
shore and scuttled or burned by their commanders. The Louisiana was 
unmanageable, and could only use two of her nine guns ; so when it was 
perceived that nothing could prevent the enemy from breaking our line, 
she was run ashore, and blown up, although the enemy's broadsides liad 
not injured her in the least. The Governor Moore, another of our boats, 
commanded by the brave Capt. Kennon, acted nobly among the enemy's 
twelve heavy sloops-of-war and gunboats, and fired its last cartridge at 
point-blank range, but was also run ashore and blown up, to prevent 
capture. 

The scene of confusion that ensued in ISTew Orleans, when the people, 
on the morning of the 24:th of April, awoke to the news that the enemy's 
fleet had passed the forts, and were actually approaching the city, defies 
all description. People were amazed, and could scarcely realize tlie awful 
fact, and ran hither and thither in speechless astonishment. Very soon the 
flames seen issuing from shipyards in Algiers and other places, convinced 
them that the news was authentic, and that Government officers were then 
busily engaged destroying everything that was likely to be of value to the 
enemy. The unfinished Mississippi and other vessels were scuttled or 
fired, ammunition destroyed, and shot sunk in the river. The jjeople, on 
their part, proceeded to the various cotton-presses, rolled out thousands of 
bales, and applied the torch ; countless cotton ships were also sunk or 
fired, and steamboats by the dozen similarly destroyed. The roar of can- 
non sounded in the distance ; the heat of the sun, and conflagrations in 



252 THE LOST CAUSE. 

every direction, made tlie atmosphere oppressively hot, while dense col- 
umns of smoke darkened the air. It was a scene of terrible grandeur. The 
baleful glare of the conflagration struggled in rivalry with the sunlight ; 
masses of smoke ascended grandly to the sky ; great ships and steamers, 
wrapped in fire, floated down the river, threatening the Federal vessels 
with destruction by their fiery contact. And in this scene of dire and 
Bublime destruction, there were perpetually tolled the alarm-bells of the 
city. 

Having narrowly escaped capture in the naval engagement. Gen. Lovell 
rode rapidly by the Levee road, and arrived in town about two o'clock in 
the afternoon. Crowds gathered round him while he related the events 
of the engagement below, bearing testimony to the heroism of our little 
navy of indifferent vessels, and seeming bewildered at the unexpected ca- 
lamity which had befallen him. He considered it advisable for his small 
force to retire without the limits of the city to avert a bombardment, and 
this idea was fully endorsed by the City Council. Accordingly, late in the 
day, his whole force, of not more than twenty-eight hundred efiectivc men, 
departed by rail some fifteen miles above the city, with orders to keep 
within easy call in case of emergency. 

The evacuation of the city by Gen. Lovell's troops was the signal for a 
new consternation, and another era of disorder in the city. Uproar and 
confusion continued throughout the day and all night, while now and 
tlien heavy guns could be heard down the river, as if the enemy was 
cautiously approaching, and firing at suspicious objects. Crowds of the 
poor were enjoying a rich harvest by the wholesale destruction of proper- 
ty, and scores of them could be seen with baskets, and bags, and drays, 
carrying off Avhatever plunder fell in their way. A low, murmuring 
voice filled the air — it was the conversation of assembled thousands. Some 
were for burning the city, rather than permit it to fall into the hands of 
the enemy ; but the opinion prevailed that such foolish excesses should be 
at once put in check, and that the city, being entirely at the mercy of the 
foe, nothing should be done to provoke a bombardment. 

On the morning of the 2.^th of April, Farragut's advance was observed 
steaming up towards the city. When abreast of the Chalniette batteries 
on both sides of the city, he was saluted with volleys from the earthworks, 
but, being uninjured, ran past and cast anchor at intervals before the city, 
with ports open, and every preparation made for a bombardment. Farra- 
gut then opened communication with the Mayor, and demanded the sur- 
render of the city, together with Lovell's forces ; but the latter were away 
the city had been left under the exclusive jurisdiction of Mayor Monroe 
and he avoided a formal surrender, declaring that if the enemy desired the 
removal of objectionable flags floating over the public buildings of New 
Orleans, he must do it by his own force. 



THE FALL OF NP:W OKLEANS. 253 

The correspondence touching the surrender of the city was protracted 
until the 28th of April. There was a purpose in this. Tlie coniidenee of 
the people had, in a measure, ralKed ; there were yet glimpses of hope. Aa 
long as Forts St. Philip, Jackson, and the Chalmette batteries remained 
intact, it was thought that something might be done to save the city. The 
enemy's fleet had no forces with which to occupy it ; his transports were 
unable to get up the river, as long as the forts held out. The enemy's land 
forces, under Gen. Butler, were at Ship Island and Mississippi City. Had 
he attempted to march overland upon New Orleans, the levees would have 
been cut, and his men drowned in the swamps. 

But the last hope was to be extinguished. While Farragut and Mayor 
Monroe were exchanging angry letters of great length, the overwhelming 
news reached New Orleans, that Forts St. Philip and Jackson had surren- 
dered to the enemy. The surrender was made in consequence of a mutiny 
of the garrisons. On examining his guns in Fort Jackson, Gen. Duncan 
found many spiked, several dismounted, and not less than three hundred 
men clamoring around him for a surrender. Kemonstrances, threats, and 
entreaties were alike useless. In vain Gen. Duncan declared to the men 
that it would be an eternal shame to give up the works, provisioned as 
they were, and scarcely touched by the enemy. In vain he vowed that 
the forts were impregnable. In vain he promised that he would blow up 
all Butler's transports in a trice, if his men would only stand by him. The 
soulless creatures who disgraced the Confederate uniform had no reply to 
these arguments and appeals. Nothing would satisfy them but surrender. 
Pagged, dusty, powder-blackened, and exhausted, Duncan reached New 
Orleans, to tell the story of the great misfortune ; and as he narrated it on 
the levee he wept, and the hundreds who listened to him were silent with 
amazement and shame. 

Farragut, being informed of the surrender of the forts, was now anxious 
to expedite the full and formal surrender of the city, before the arriv^al of 
Butler with his transports. The correspondence with the Mayor had con- 
tinued through several days. On the 28th of April, Farragut addressed 
his ultimatum to that officer, complaining of the continued display of the 
State flag of Louisiana on the City Hall, and concluding with a threat of 
the bombardment of the city, by notifying him to remove the women and 
children from its limits within forty-eight hours. The flag was not re- 
moved, and the threat was not fulfllled. On the 1st of May, Farragut re- 
luctantly consented to send his own forces to take down the flag. 

About noon, he sent on shore a party of two hundred marines "svitli two 
brass howitzers, who marched througli the streets and formed before the 
City Hall. The officer in command ascended to the dome of the building, 
and took down the objectionable State banner — the sign of all State rights. 
The act was done in profound silence ; there were no idle utterances of 



254 THE LOST CAUSE. 

curiosity ; indignation was impotent, and men with compressed lips and 
darkened brows witnessed the first ceremony of their humiliation, and saw 
erected above them the emblem of tyrannical oppression. A speechless 
crowd of many thousands thronged the streets ; a line of bayonets glis- 
tened within the square ; the marines stood statue-like ; the very air was 
oppressive with stillness ; and so, in dead silence, the Stars and Stripes 
were hoisted over New Orleans, and the city passed forever from tlie rule 
and power of the Confederates. 

Thus, after an engagement the casualties of which might be counted by 
liundreds, fell New Orleans, with its population of one hundred and seven- 
ty thousand souls — the commercial capital of the South, and the largest 
exporting city in the world. It was a terrible disaster to the Confederacy. 
The fall of Donelson broke our centre in the West. The fall of New Ot- 
leans yet more sorely punished the vanity of the Confederates ; annihi- 
lated their power in Louisiana ; broke up their routes to Texas and the 
Gulf ; closed their access to the richest grain and cattle country in the 
South ; gave to the enemy a new base of operations ; and, more than any- 
thing else, staggered the confidence of Europe in the fortunes of the Con- 
federacy.* And yet these disasters were very far from deciding the war. 

* The following document, put in our possession, discusses the evacuation of New Orleans in a 
military point of view, in a very intelligible style that will interest the general reader, and completes 
ill all respects the story of the disaster : 

Major-General LoveWs reasons for evacuating Ne^o Orleans. 
" I determined to evacuate the city, when the enemy suc(?eeded in passing the forts, for the fol- 
lowing reasons : The principal and almost entire concentration of strength in guns, men, and ships, 
had been made at that point. It had been selected as the spot where the battle for the defence of 
New Orleans, against a fleet coming up the river, should be fought, and everything available for the 
defence below, both ashore and afloat, had been collected there, except the twelve guns on the river 
at the lower interior line, which had been put there to flank that line. The obstructions had been 
placed there, and, until swept away, had been a complete bar to the passage of a hostile fleet, and 
the Naval and River Defence ofiicers had brought to bear at that point all their available strength ; 
and although New Orleans was still in condition to resist any attack by land, yet when, after six 
days and nights of incessant conflict, the forts were passed, and all our defences afloat were either 
burnt or sunk, I knew that there was no material obstacle to prevent the fleet from proceeding at 
once to the city, and that all the guns, forts, and men on the other ten or twelve water approaches 
would go for nought, 

" The twelve guns in the open earthworks at the lower line had but twenty rounds of powder 
each (the remainder havmg been given to the Louisiana), and could offer no serious resistance to a 
fleet which had already passed more than one hundred guns in masonry works, better manned, and 
amply supplied with powder. 

" The city was surrounded by swamps, and there was but one outlet by land, viz., through the 
narrow neck between the river and Lake Pontchartrain. At Kenner, on the Mississippi, ten miles 
above the city, the firm ground between the river and swamp which borders the lake is narrowed to 
about three quarters of a mile, through which passes the Jackson Railroad. The river at this time 
was full to the tops of the levees, and a single one of their large ships of war, by anchoring at thia 
point, would have commanded with her broadsides (at point-blank range) the only land exit from 



THE FALL OF NEW OKLEANS. 255 

A train of Confederate victories was to follow them, and the attention of 
the world was now to be fixed npon the campaign in Virginia. 

New Orleans, sweeping with her guns (which would have been higher than the surface of the coun- 
try) every foot of ground between the river and the lake. 

'* The obstructions placed across the Rigolets at Fort Pike had been swept away in a storm shorts 
ly before by some vessels which'had broken adrift, and there was an open channel fully as wide aa 
the Mississippi River into Lake Pontchartrain, which could easily be passed by the enemy at night 
Such a movement, in connection with the placing of one or more ships at Kenner, would have com- 
pletely surrounded New Orleans, cutting off all communications by land or water with the interiour. 
My efforts to accumulate provisions enough in the city to feed the popiilation had proved abortive, 
and an examination made a few days previous to the evacuation, had satisfied me that there were not 
in the city provisions enough to sustain the population for more than eighteen days. Taking it for 
granted that the enemy would occupy Kenner, as, indeed, he did in a few days, we should have been 
starved into a surrender in less than three weeks, for Avhen the hostile fleet anchored in frout of the 
city, we wer<» entirely cut off from Texas and Red River — our main sources of supply. 

" I had more than three months' rations available for my troops (less than three thousand men), 
but this would have answered but a few days for more than one hundred and fifty thousand persons. 
Some of the steamers at the levee had been destroyed, and a number had fled up the river, so that 
the Jackson Railroad was the only means of transportation for removing the women, children, and 
non-combatants from the city, which removal it would have required months to accomplish. In the 
vicinity of New Orleans, and for many miles above, there was nothing but swamps filled with water, 
in which the families could take refuge, and, moreover, a great portion of the male protectors of 
these families were absent with our armies in Tennessee and Virginia, and, of course, could not 
superintend their removal. The plan, theretbre, of removing the non-combatants, and remaining 
with the troops, was entirely impracticable. Thirteen of the enemy's ships were anchored abreast 
of the city with their guns looking down the streets, which they could have swept to the swamps 
in rear of the houses, or set on fire at a number of points, and had I continued to occupy it with 
troops, they would have been justified by the laws of war in opening fire after due notice to the 
women and children to withdraw from danger. I knew that they had not, and could not have for 
several days, any land forces to take possession, and having determined, for the reasons above stated, 
to evacuate the city, I thought it best to remove the troo|)S at once and speedily, and thus convert 
New Orleans from a military position into that of an ungarrisoned city. By so doing, I should de- 
prive the enemy of all pretext for a wanton and useless sacrifice of life and property, and as they 
were unable to occupy it, I would have a number of days for the undisturbed removal of the vast 
amount of public property which was on hand at that time. My troops, however, were placed at 
Camp Moore, only four hours' run from the city by rail, and I could have reoccupied it at any time 
for several days after the evacuation, if it had been deemed advisable. Had I regarded the outside 
popular clamor that would ensue, I should have subjected the people of New Orleans to a bombard- 
ment ; but I did not think myself justified lor such a purpose in spilling the blood of women and 
children, when I knew that in two or three weeks at farthest, want of food for the inhabitants would 
compel me to evacuate the city, or, if that had been then impossible, to surrender. 

" I spoke to the Mayor, several members of the City Council, and many prominent citizens, on 
the subject, and while none seemed unwilling to undergo any danger, if by so doing they could ar- 
rive at favourable results, yet all, without exception, under the civcumstances, approved jf and 
advised the withdrawal of the troops. 

" In determining upon the evacuation, I necessarily, as soon as the enemy's fleet had passed the 
forts, regarded the position the same as if both their army and navy were present before the city, 
making due allowance simply for the time it would take them to transport their army up ; inas- 
much as their ships, having passed Forts Jackson and St. Philip, they could at once place them- 
selves in open and uninterrupted comnuinicaliou with their army at points from six to twt^nty miles 
ibove the forts, through various small water couuuunications from the Gulf, made more available 



256 THE LOST CAUSE. 

But before passing to those memorable fields, we may glance at a se- 
quel cif the suiTcnder of New Orleans, whicli, indeed, is among the most 

by the extraordmarr height of the river, and which, -while we were in possession of the hitter, I had 
easily and without risk defended with launches and a part of the River Defence fleet. I had also 
stationed Skymanski's Regiment at Quarantine for the same object. These, howev?r, were all de- 
stroyed or captured by the enemy's fleet, after they got possession of the river between the forta 
and the city. 

" There was a further and very important reason for the course which I pursued. I knew thai 
if I remained in New Orleans, we should in all probability lose in a shoi't time troops, guns, and 
supplies of all kinds, and the enemy would then be in full possession of the river as far as Memphis, 
which eventually feU also into their hands. By withdrawing my command, however, I would be 
enabled to fortify, arm, and garrison Vicksburg, a strong and defensible position. On the 17th of 
April I had written to Gen. Beauregard, recommending the fortification of Vicksburg, and asking 
him for an engineer officer ; and two days after the evacuation I advised the adjutant-general at 
Richmond, Gen. Cooper, that I should occupy that place and Jackson. I sent thither a number of 
heavy guns and quantities of ammunition, with the artillerists from the various forts near New Or- 
leans, and sent Gen. Smith, with a brigade of infantry, to take command of the whole. The officers, 
troops, and guns which held Vicksburg last summer, were almost entirely the same which I with- 
drew from New Orleans, rather than remain and submit to an inevitable surrender. 

" Results have fully proved the wisdom of the military policy pursued by me in collecting all the 
means in Department No. One and taking a new and stronger position on the Mississippi River. 

" The evacuation of New Orleans and its occupation by the enemy, would necessarily be followed 
sooner or later by the abandonment of the several forts and small works on the exterior line, which 
were erected principally to defend the approaches to that city, and after its evacuation could no 
longer serve any useful purpose, as the position of the enemy (in the river abreast the city) gave him 
control of the Opelousas Railroad, thus enabling him to get in rear of the works at Barrataria Bay, 
Grand Caillou, Bayou Lafourche, and Berwick Bay, by which he could cut off and capture all the 
garrison, with small arms, ammunition, and stores, all of which were greatly needed at that time. I 
directed them to be abandoned at once. The officers in command were ordered to report with theii 
troops and all transportable supplies at Camp Moore or Vicksburg. Some of them complied with 
the order, but a portion of the garrison, after marching part of the way, refused to go further, and, 
in spite of their officer, disbanded, and went to New Orleans. 

" Forts Jackson and St. Philip surrendered in consequence of a mutiny among the men on the 
2Sth of April. Forts Pike and Macornb were abandoned without my orders. When I returned to 
the city from the lower forts on the 24th, I directed Col. Fuller, who was in command of the works 
on the lakes, which comprised Forts Pike and Macomb, to have everything ready to abandon those 
forts, in case I should so order it. Supposing that the enemy would occupy Kenner, and thus de- 
prive me of the use of the Jackson Railroad, it was my intention to remove the troops, supplies, etc., 
across Lake Pontchartrain to Pass Manchac and Madisonville, holding the entrance to that lake by 
the fort as long as possible. The enemy, however, did not interfere with the railroad at Kenner, 
and the greater part of the men and public property were removed by rail. . I went to Camp Moore 
on the night of the 25th to arrange matters there, and on the morning of the 27th I received infor- 
mation that Col. Fuller had arrived at Covington, La., with the garrison of Forts Pike and Macomb. 
This was the first knowledge I had of the abandonment of those works. I immediately directed 
them to be reoccupied, and sent a letter to Capt. Poindexter of the navy, in command of the ships 
on the lake, requesting his cooperation in this movement. Col. Fuller rephed on the 2Sth that the 
forts had been dismantled, the guns spiked, and the carriages destroyed, and thr.t it was impossible 
to reoccupy them. I was officially informed of the surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Philip on the 
morning of the 29th, and deemed it, therefore, useless to make any further attempt to reoccupy 
Forts Pike and Macomb. The cisterns in the two last-named works only held water enough lu 
serve the g;irrison a short time, and had to be supplied by steamers from a distance. They coulJ 



KULE OF BUTLER IN KEW ORLEANS. 251 

remarkable records of the war. Any story of New Orleans is inconi];>lete 
without the hero, Benjamin F. Butler. This man, who was to reap the 
fruits of the victory of the Federal fleet, and enact the part of military 
ruler in New Orleans, was an example of that reputation so easily made 
in the North by brazen assertions, sensational dispatches, and coarse abuse 
of rebels. Gen. Butlei^ had been a small lawyer in Massachusetts ; his 
first experiment in politics was that of a Northern man with Southern 
principles ; he was a delegate to the Charleston Convention of 1860, and 
ho was accustomed to relate with singular satisfaction the circumstance 
that he had voted in that body, more than forty times, for Jefferson Davis 
as the nominee for President of the United States ! When the war broke 
out, he was a ready convert to the popular doctrine in his State, and went 
in advance of it in his expressions of ferocity towards the people of the 
South. He had already made himself infamous in Baltimore by his war 
U23on non-combatants ; by browbeating quiet citizens ; by examining courts 
in which the severity of the military judge was curiously mingled v.'ith the 
peculiar skill and disreputable adroitness of the pettifogger ; and by his 
quick and apt invention of various instruments of moral torture. The ap- 
pearance of the man was extraordinary and revolting. He had small, 
muddy, cruel eyes ; one of them was curtained by a drooping lid ; and 
there was a smothered glower in them indicative of ill-contained and vio- 
lent passion. The other of his features were almost covered up in enor- 
mous chops, with little webs of red veins in them ; and the whole expres* 
Bion of his face was that of a lecherous coarseness and a cunning ferocity. 

Such was the tyrant of New Orleans. He inaugurated his rule in the 
subdued city by the following order, directed against the women of New 
Orleans, which at once made his name infamous in all the Christian and 
civilized countries of the world, and obtained for him in the South the 
popular and persistent title of the " Beast : " 

" llEADaUAUTEES, Depaiitjient OP GuLP, New Ouleans, May 15. 

" As officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults 
from women calling tliemselves ladies, of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous 
non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered hereafter, when any female shall 
by mere gesture or movement insult, or show contempt for any officers or soldiers of the 
United States, she sliall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman about town 
plying her avocation. By command of Maj.-Gen. BUTLER. 

" Geo. 0. Strong, A. A. G." 

Tlie infamous " woman-order " was the prelude to a rule in New 
Orleans that excited the horrour and disgust of the civilized world. The 

not have held out for any great length of time for this reason, and I deemed it best to save their 
garrisons (composed of veil-drilled artillerists) for the works at Vicksburg, where they have ever 
since rendered such good service. But it was not intended to abandon them so soon, nor, indeed, 
till I had transfeired all the public property from New Orleans." 
17 



258 THE LOST CAUSE. 

newspapers which declined to publish an edict so disreputable were threat- 
ened with suppression ; * and Major Monroe and some of the city author- 
ities who ventured to protest against it, were arrested, shipped down to 
Fort Jackson, and for many months kept in confinement there. Then 
followed a series of acts of cruelty, despotism and indecency. Citizens 
accused of contumacious disloyalty, were confined at hard labour, with 
balls and chains attached to their limbs. Men, whose only offence was 
selling medicines to sick Confederate soldiers, were arrested and impris- 
oned. A physician who, as a joke, exhibited a skeleton in his window as 
that of a Yankee soldier, was sentenced to be confined at Ship Island for 
two years, at hard labour. A lady, the wife of a former member of Con- 
gress of the United States, who haj)pened to laugh as the funeral train of a 
Yankee officer passed her door, received this sentence : " It is, therefore, 
ordered that she be not ' regarded and treated as a common w^oman,' of 
whom no officer or soldier is bound to take notice, but as an uncommon, 
bad, and dangerous woman, stirring up strife, and inciting to riot, and that, 
therefore, she be confined at Ship Island, in the State of Mississippi, within 
proper limits there, till further orders." The distinction of sex seems only to 

* The following appeared in a Southern newspaper during the days of Butler's rule in New 
Orleans : 

" Considering the character of the infamous order issued, with reference to the ladies of New 
Orleans, the following will be thought a well-designed act of retributive justice. Preparations were 
making for a dress-parade, and a number of officers had congregated in front of the St. Charles, 
Butler's headquarters. A handsome carriage was driven in front of the hotel, accompanied by ser- 
vants m livery, with every sign of wealth and taste in the owner of the equipage. The occupant, 
dressed in the latest fashion and sparkling with jewelry, drew from her pocket her gold card-case, 
and taking therefrom her card, sent it up to Butler's rooms. Tiie next day himself and lady called 
at the residence indicated on the card — a fine mansion in a fashionable part of the city — where a 
couple of hours were agreeably spent in conversation, followed by the introduction of wine and cake, 
wlien the highly-delighted visitors took their departure. Butler did not appreciate the fact that he 
had been made the victim of a successful " sell," until he learned shortly afterwards that he had been 
paying his respects to the proprietress of one of the most celebrated bagnios in the State, who is at 
this time ' considered a woman of (he town, plying her vocation as such.' " 

As a matter of justice — or as a specimen of ingenious quibbling, as the reader may decide — we 
should not omit Gen. Butler's explanation and attempted justification of his " woman-order."' The 
author of these pages, in the painful character of a prisoner of war, had, once, occasion to meet Gen. 
Butler, and to have some conversation with him, in the course of which Gen. B. volunteered a long 
defence of his rule in New Orleans. He declared that as to the " woman-order," when Lord Palmer- 
ston denounced it in the British Parliament, he might, if he had turned to the Ordinances of London, 
have found that it had been borrowed from that ancient and respectable authority. The " Ladies " 
of New Orleans, he said, did not interfere with his troops ; it was the demi-monde that troubled him. 
One of this class had spat in an officer's face. Another had placed herself vis-a-vis to an officer in 
the street, exclaiming, " La, here is a Yankee ; don't he look like a monkey ! " It became necessary 
to adopt an order that " would execute itself," and have these women treated as street-walkers. " How 
do you treat a street-walker ? " said Gen. Butier ; " you dca't hug and kiss her in the street ! " The 
General explained that he meant only that these women wae to be treated with those signs of con 
tempt and contumely usually bestowed upon street-walkers, so as to make them ashamed of them- 
selves ; and it was thus the order " executed itself." 



RULE OF BUTLER IN NEW ORLEANS. 259 

have been recognized by Butler as a cowardly opportunity for advantaga 
In his office, in the St. Charles Hotel, the inscription was placed in plain 
Biglit : " There is no difference hetween a he and a she adder in thei} 
wm;»2." His officers were allowed to indulge their rapacity and lust at 
will ; they seized houses of respectable citizens, and made them the shops 
of infamous female characters ; they appropriated the contents of wine- 
rooms ; they plundered the wardrobes of ladies and gentlemen ; they sent 
away from the city the clothing of whole families ; they " confiscated " 
pianos, libraries, and whatever articles of luxury and ornament pleased 
their fancy, and sent them as presents and souvenirs to their friends at 
home. It was the era of plunder and ill-gotten gains. Fines wxn-e col- 
lected at pleasure. Kecusants were threatened with ball and chain. A 
trade was opened in provisions for cotton, and Butler's own brother was 
made banker and broker of the corrupt operations, buying confiscated 
property, trading provisions and even military stores for cotton, and amass- 
ing out of the distress of an almost starving people fortunes of princely 
amount and villainous history. ]^o wonder that the principal of these 
outrages lived in perpetual alarm for the safety of his life. It was said 
that he wore secret armour. He certainly was never for a moment with- 
out an armed guard. Sentinels walked in five paces of him ; and when he 
sat in his office, several pistols lay beside him, and a chair allotted to the 
visitor was chained to the wall while a pistol capped but unloaded was 
placed, as if carelessly, within reach, as a cunning decoy to tlie supposed 
assassin.* 

A shocking incident of Butler's despotism in New Orleans was the 
execution of William B. Mumford, a citizen of the Confederate States, 
charged with the singular ci-ime of having taken the Federal flag from the 
United States Mint, w^hich was done before the city had surrendered, and 
was, in any circumstances, but an act of war. He was condemned to death 
for an insult to the enemy's ensign. It was scarcely to be believed that 
on such a charge a human life would be taken, deliberately and in cold 
blood. Butler was inexorable. The wife and children of the condemned 
man piteously plead for his life. Butler's answer was cruel and taunting. 
A number of citizens joined in a petition for mercy. Butler answered that 

* We are indebted to James Parton, a Northern biographer of Butler, for mention of this 
ingenious device. Parton thus describes the arrangements of his hero's office, wliile transacthig 
l)miaess : 

" The office was a large room, furnished with little more than a long table and a few chairs. In 
one comer, behind the table, sat, unobserved, a short-hand rejjorter, who, at a signal from the Gen- 
eral, would take down the examination of an applicant or an informer. The General began businesfl 
by placing his pistol upon the table, within easy reach. After the detection of two or three plots to 
assassinate him, one of the aides caused a little shelf to be made under the table for the pistol, while 
another pistol, urdoaded, lay upon the table, which any gentleman, disposed to attempt the game Oif 
assassination, was at liberty to snatch." 



260 THE LOST CAUSE. 

some vicious men in New Orleans had sent him defiant letters about 
Mnmford's fate ; that an issue had been raised, that it was " to be decided 
whether he was to govern in New Orleans or not " — and he decided it bj 
keeping the word he had first pronounced, and sending Mumford to the 
gallows. 

The condemned man was one of humble station in life, and was said to 
have been of dissipated habits. But he was faultlessly brave. On the gallows 
the suggestion was made to him that he might yet save his life by a Immil 
iating and piteous confession. He replied to the ofiicer who thus tempted 
him : " Go away." He turned to the crowd, and said, with a distinct and 
steady voice : "• I consider that the manner of my death will be no disgrace 
to my wife and children ; my country will honour them." More than a 
thousand spectators stood around the gallows ; they could not believe that 
the last act of the tragedy was really to be performed ; they looked on in 
astonished and profound silence. 

Before the era of Butler in New Orleans, the Confederates had had a 
large and instructive experience of the ferocity of their enemies, and their 
disregard of all the rules of war and customs of civilization. At Manassas 
and Pensacola the Federals had repeatedly and deliberately fired upon 
hospitals. In the naval battle in Hampton Eoads, they had hung out a 
white flag, and then opened a perfidious fire upon our seamen. At New- 
bern they had attempted to shell a town containing several thousand 
women and children, before either demanding a surrender, or giving the 
citizens notice of their intentions. They had broken faith on every occa- 
sion of expediency ; they had disregarded flags of truces ; they had stolen 
private property ; they had burned houses, and desecrated churches ; they 
had stripped widows and orphans of death's legacies by a barbarous law 
of confiscation ; they had overthrown municipalities and State Govern- 
ments ; they had imprisoned citizens, without warrant and regardless of 
age or sex ; and they had set at defiance the plainest laws of civilized 
warfare. 

Butler's government in New Orleans, and his " ingenious " war upon 
the helplessness of men and virtue of women was another step in atrocity. 
The Louisiana soldiers in Yirginia went into battle, shouting : " Eemem- 
l)er Butler ! " It was declared that the display of Federal authority in the 
conquered city of New Orleans was sufficient to make the soldiers of the 
South devote anew whatever they had of life and labour and blood to the 
cause of the safety and honour of their country. And yet it was but the 
oj^ening chapter of cruelty and horrours, exaggerated at each step of the 
Will-, until Humanity was to stand aghast at the black volume of misery 
»nd ruin. 



1 



CHAPTEK XVI. 

MORE THAU ONE-THIRD OF THE FEDERAL FORCES OPERATING AGAINST RICHMOND. ^m'cTT.KIt 

LAN's OPINION OF HIS ARMY. — ITS NUMERICAL STRENGTH. — OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF CON* 
FEDERATE FORCES IN NORTH VIRGINIA. — LINCOLN'S ORDER OF THE 22D FEBRUARY. — 
m'cLELLAN's DISSENT. — WHEN JOHNSTON DETERMINED TO CHANGE HIS LINE ON THE POTO- 
MAC. HIS PREPARATIONS FOR RETREAT. HOW IT WAS ACCOMPLISHED. — m'cLELLAn's 

ADVANCE. — DISCOVERY OF JOHNSTON's EVACUATION OF MANASSAS AND CENTREVILLE. — 
HE CROSSES THE RAPPAHANNOCK AND WAITS FOR THE ENEMY. — HE PENETRATES m'cLEL- 
LAn's DESIGNS. — FEDERAL COUNCIL OF WAR AT FAIRFAX COURT-HOUSE. — SHIFTING OF 

THE SCENES OF WAR IN VIRGINIA. THE BATTLE OF KERNSTOWN. HOW " STONEWALL " 

JACKSON CAME TO FIGHT THIS BATTLE. — GREAT NUMERICAL SUPERIORITY OF THE ENEMY. 
— THE CONTEST AT THE STONE FENCE. — JACKSON FALLS BACK TO CEDAR CREEK. — MAGRU- 
DER's line ON THE PENINSULA. — A FEARFUL CRISIS. — m'cLELLAN HELD IN CHECK BY 
ELEVEN THOUSAND CONFEDERATES. — OUTWITTED AGAIN BY JOHNSTON. — RETREAT OF THE 

CONFEDERATES UP THE PENINSULA. STRATEGIC MERIT OF THE MOVEMENT. — BATTLE OF 

WILLIAMSBURG. — LONGSTREEt's DIVISION ENGAGED. — SUCCESS OF THE CONFEDERATES. — 

M'oLELLAn's whole army in peril. HIS FLANK MOVEMENT ON JOHNSTON's RETREAT. — 

ENGAGEMENT AT BARHAMSVILLE. THE LINE OF THE CHICKAHOMINY. JOHNSTON's BRIL- 
LIANT STRATEGY. — EVACUATION OF NORFOLK. — DESTRUCTION OF THE VIRGINIA. — HER 
LAST CHALLENGE TO THE ENEMY. — A GALLING SPECTACLE. — COMMODORE TATNALL ORDERS 
HER DESTRUCTION. — A COURT OF INQUIRY. — NAVAL ENGAGEMENT AT DREWRy's BLUFF. — 
A FEEBLE BARRIER TO RICHMOND. — REPULSE OF THE FEDERAL FLEET. — WHAT IT PROVED. 
m'cLELLAN's INVESTMENT OF THE LINE OF THE CHICKAHOMINY. DEFENCES OF RICH- 
MOND. — SCENES AROUND THE FEDERAL CAPITAL. — ALARM AND EXCITEMENT OF ITS PEO- 
PLE. — THE EXODUS FROM RICHMOND. — PUBLIC MEETING IN THE CITY HALL. NOBLE RESO- 
LUTION OF THE LEGISLATURE OF VIRGINIA. REANIMATION OF THE PEOPLE AND THE 

AUTHORITIES. — PRESIDENT DAVIs' EARLY OPINION OF THE EFFECT OF THE FALL OF RICH- 
MOND. — APPEALS OF THE RICHMOND PRESS. — JACKSON's CAMPAIGN IN THE VALLEY OF 
VIRGINIA. — JACKSON DETERMINES ON THE AGGRESSIVE. — DISPOSITION OF THE FEDERAL 
FORCES WEST OF THE BLUE RIDGE. — AFFAIR AT m'dOWELL. — JACKSON DECEIVES BANKS 

— SURPRISES HIS REAR-GUARD AT PORT ROYAL. BANKS' RACE TO WINCHESTER. SCENES 

OF RETREAT THROUGH WINCHESTER. BANKS' QUICK TIME TO THE POTOMAC. EXTENT OP 

JACKSON's SUCCESS. FRUITS OF TWO DAYs' OPERATIONS OF THE CONFEDERATES. JACK- 
SON PASSES BETWEEN THE COLUMNS OF FREMONT AND SHIELDS. DEATH OF TURNEB 

ASHBT. — JACKSON's TRIBUTE TO HIM. — BATTLES OF CROSS KEYS AND PORT REPUBIIC — 
EWELL DEFEATS FREMONT. — THE FIELD OF PORT REPUBLIC. — EWELl's ARRIVAL SAVES 
THE DAY. — CRITICAL AND SPLENDID ACTION OF TWO VIRGINIA REGIMENTS. — CLOSE OF 
THE VALLEY CAMPAIGN. — JACKSON's ALMOST MARVELLOUS SUCCESS. — HIS HALT AT 

•weyer's cave. 



262 THE LOST CAUSE, 

In the first part of the year 1862, the Federal Government, with plana 
fully matured, had under arms about six hundred thousand men ; more 
titan one-third of whom were operating in the direction of Richmond. 
"Wliat Gen. McClellan himself said of the vast and brilliant army with 
wliieh he designed to capture the Confederate capital was not extravagant. 
It was, indeed, " magnificent in material, admirable in dscipline and in- 
struction, excellently equipped and armed." On March 1, 1862, the num- 
ber of Federal troops in and about Washington had increased to 193,142, 
fit for duty, with a grand aggregate of 221,987. 

Such was the heavy and perilous force of the enemy that, in the spring 
of 1862, hung on the northern frontier of Virginia. Let us see what was 
in front of it on the Confederate line of defence. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston 
had in the camps of Centreville and Manassas less than thirty thousand 
men. These figures are from an official source. " Stonewall " Jachson had 
been detached with eleven skeleton regiments to amuse the enemy in the 
Shenandoah Yalley, passing rapidly between Banks and Shields, and 
giving them the idea that he meditated a formidable movement. Such 
was the force that in North Virginia stood in McClellan's path, and de- 
terred him from a blow that at that time might have been fatal to the 
Southern Confederacy. 

It had been the idea of the "Washington authorities to despatch the 
Confederacy by a combined movement in the winter. The order of Presi- 
dent Lincoln for a general movement of the land and naval forces against 
the Confederate positions on the 22d of February (Washington's birth- 
day), directed that McClellan's army should advance for the immediate 
object of seizing and occupying a point upon the railroad southwest of 
Manassas Junction. But McClellan urged a different line of operations 
on the Lower Rappahannock, obtained delay, and did not advance. 

In the mean time, Gen. Johnston had not been an idle sjjectator of the 
immense and overwhelming preparations of the enemy in his front. As 
a commander he was sagacious, quick to apprehend, and had that peculiar 
military reticence in connection with a sage manner and decisive action, 
that obtained the confidence of his men instead of exciting criticism, or 
alarming their suspicions. In the first winter months of 1862, he had de- 
termined to change his line on the Potomac. All idea of off'ensive opera- 
tions on it had long ago been abandoned. It had become necessary in 
Gen. Johnston's opinion that the main body of the Confederate forces in 
Virginia should be in supporting distance of the Army of the Peninsula, 
so that, in the event of either being driven back, they might combine for 
final resistance before Richmond. 

During winter, Johnston had been quietly transporting his immense 
stores towards the Rappahannock, removing every cannon that could be 



Johnston's retreat. 263 

spared, and filling tlie empty embrasures with hollow logs painted black, 
which even at a few yards' distance much resembled thirty-two and sixty- 
four pounders. Never were preparations for a retreat so quietly and skil- 
fully made. So perfectly were all things arranged that all stores, baggage, 
sick, material, and guns were removed far to the rear, before Johnston's 
own men realized the possibility of a retreat. It was only as the dificreiit 
brigades fell into line, and the main army defiled southward through 
Fauquier County that the men discovered the movement to be a general 
and not a partial one. 

On the 8th of March, the Government at Washington issued a peremp- 
tory order to McClellan to move for the new base of operations he de- 
signed on the Chesapeake Bay, and to capture the Confederate batteiies on 
the Potomac. The change in the situation which Johnston's skilful retreat 
had effected was not known in "Washington. On the 9th of March 
McClellan's army was in motion. All Washington was in expectation ; 
it was known that the second " On-to-Richmond " had commenced, and 
that the second grand army was about to pass its grand climacteric. At 
night Fairfax Court-House was reached, and the grand army encamped 
within a radius of two miles. At a late hour came the wonderful tidings 
that Manassas and Centreville had been evacuated ! There was no enemy 
there. But there was a great conflagration in full flame, bridges and 
machine-shops just blown up, and other incendiary fires gleaming in the 
distance, l^othing was left in the famous Confederate position ; it was 
desolate, though frowning in fortified grandeur. Thus had been accom- 
plished in the face of the enemy the most successful and complete evacu- 
ation — the most secure and perfect retreat of which the history of the war 
furnishes an example. Johnston had safely escaped with his entire right 
and left wings ; he had securely carried off every gun and all his provi- 
sions and munitions ; and he had blown up or otherwise destroyed every 
bridge and culvert on turnpike and railroad along his route.* 

When Johnston's army had crossed the Rappahannock, it was drawn 
up in line, and waited a week for the enemy ; but McClellan refused the 
challenge, and moved down the stream near the sea-board. To contract 

• In Gen. McClellan's official report of this period, he seeks to convey the impression to the 
reader that he was well aware of Johnston's evacuation, and only marched his troops to Manassas 
that they might gain " some experience on the march and bivouac preparatory to the campaign, and 
to get rid of the superfluous baggage and other impediments which accumulate round an army en- 
camped for a long time in one locality." He continues : " A march to Manassas and bade could 
produce no delay in embarking for the Lower Chesapeake, as the transports could not be ready for 
some time, and it afforded a good intermediate step between the quiet and comparative comfort of 
the camps round Washington and the rigours of active operations." 

If Gen. McClellan had designed to have written something to be laughed at, he could not have 
better succeeded than in the sentences quoted above. 



THE T-OST CAUSE. 

his left, Johnston fell back across the Eapidan, and increased the strength 
of the right against all flanking manoeuvres. Large fleets of transports 
were gathered at the month of the Eappahannock, but few knew their 
object or destination, Johnston however divined it. He promptly took 
the idea that the Federals, while making a show of force along the Lower 
liappahannock, would not attack ; their object being to transport their 
force with great celerity to the Peninsula, thinking to suprise Magriider at 
Yorktown, and seize Kichmond before any troops could be marched to 
oppose them. 

He was right. On March 13, a council of war was assembled at Fair- 
fax Conrt-House, by McClellan. It agreed on the following resolution : 
" That the enemy, having retreated from Manassas to Gordonsville, behind 
the Rappahannock and the Eapidan, it is the opinion of Generals command- 
ing army corps that the operations to be carried on will be best undertaken 
from Old Point Comfort between the York and James Eivers : provided, 
1st, That the enemy's vessel Merrimac can be neutralized ; 2d, That the 
means of transportation sufficient for an immediate transfer of the force to 
its new base can be ready at Washington and Alexandria to move down 
the Potomac ; and, 3d, That a naval auxiliary force can be had to silence, 
or aid in silencing, the enemy's batteries on the Y^ork Eiver ; 4th, That 
the force to be left to cover Washington shall be such as to give an entire 
feeling of security for its safety from menace." 

While the scene of the most important contest in Virginia was thus 
being shifted, and Gen. Banks was transferring a heavy force from the 
Shenandoah Yalley to take position at Centreville, in pursuance of 
McClellan's plan for the protection of Washington, a battle unimportant 
but bloody took place near Winchester. 



BATTLE OF KEKNSTOWN. 

Gen. Shields had been left at Winchester by Banks with a division and 
some cavalry, and commanded, as he states in his official report, seven 
thousand men of all arms. Ascertaining that " Stonewall " Jackson was at 
New Market, he made a feint, pretended' to retreat on the 20tli of March, 
and at night placed his force in a secluded position, two miles from Win- 
chester on the Martinsburg road. This movement, and the masked posi- 
tion of the enemy made an impression upon the inhabitants of Winchester 
that Shields' army had left, and that nothing remained but a few regi- 
ments to garrison the place. On the 22nd Ashby's cavalry drove m the 
enemy's pickets, and discovered only a brigade. The next day Jackson 
had moved his line near Ivernstown, prepared to give battle and expect- 



BATTLE OF KEENSTOWN. 203 

ing to find only a small force of tlie enemy at the point of attack. He 
bad less than twenty-five hundred men. It will amuse the Southern 
reader to find it stated in Gen. Shields' official report that Jackson had in 
the engagement of Kernstown eleven thousand men, and was, therefore, 
in superiour force. 

The engagement between these unequal forces commenced al)0ut four 
o'clock in the evening of the 23d of March, and terminated when night 
closed upon the scene of conflict. Jackson's left flank, commanded by 
Gen. Garnett, was finally turned, and forced back upon the centre, but only 
after a most desperate and bloody encounter. A long stone fence ran across 
an open field, which the enemy were endeavouring to reach. Federals 
and Confederates were both in motion for this natural breast-work, when 
the 24tli Virginia, (Irisii), ran rapidly forward, arrived at the fence first, 
and poured a volley into the enemy at ten paces distant. But the over- 
whelming numbers of the enemy soon swept over the fence, and drove the 
Confederate left into the Avoods, taking two guns and a number of 
prisoners. 

During the night Gen. Jackson decided to fall back to Cedar Creek. 
The enemy pursued as far as Harrisonburg, but with little efiect, as 
Ashby's famous cavalry, the terrour of the Federals, covered the retreat. 
In his official report Gen. Shields wrote that the retreat " became fiight ;" 
but in a private letter to a friend in Washington, he had previously written 
of the Confederates: "Such were their gallantr}', and high state of dis- 
cipline that at no time during the battle or pursuit did they give way to 
panic." 

The Confederate loss in killed, wounded and prisoners is carefully esti- 
mated at 465. Gen. Shields stated his loss as 103 killed, and 441 wounded. 
It had been a fierce and frightful engagement ; for Jackson had lost nearly 
twenty per cent, of his force in a very few hours of confiict. But the 
battle was without any general signification. It drew, hoAvever, upon 
Jackson a great deal of censure ; " he was," says one of his officers, " cursed 
by every one ; " and it must be confessed, in this instance at least, the 
great commander had been entrapped by the enemy. 

But public attention in Eichmond was speedily taken from an aff"air so 
small by daily announceuicnts of fleets of transports arriving in Hampton 
Koads, and the vast extension 6f tlie long line of tents at Newport News. 
McClellan, having the advantage of water-carriage, had rapidly changed 
his line of O])crations, and was at the threshold of a new approach to Hich- 
moud, while the great bulk of the Confederate force was still in motion 
in the neighbourhood of the Rappahannock and the Rapidan. 

It was a fearful crisis. The fate of Richmond hung upon the line held 
across the Peninsula, from Yorktown on the York River to Mulberry Isl- 
and en James River, b}tGen. Magruder with little more than ten thousand 



266 THE LOST CAUSE. 

men. McClellan had three eorjos cCarmee in the lines before Yorkto-mi, 
and had in the field a force of nearly 90,000 infantry, 55 butteries of 
artillery (making a total of 330 field guns), and about 10,000 cavaliy, 
besides a siege train of 103 guns. This estimate of his force did not 
include the garrison of Fortress Monroe of about 10,000 men, nor Frank- 
lin's division which arrived about the end of April. The commander of 
this force hesitated before a line of eleven thousand men. His hesitation 
again saved Richmond. He was again deceived as to the strength of tho 
Confederates. With admirable adroitness Gen. Magruder extended his 
little force over a distance of several miles, placing a regiment in every 
gap open to observation, to give the appearance of numbers to the enemy. 
McClellan took to the spade, and commenced the operation of a regular 
siege against Yorktown. While he was constructing his parallels. Gen. 
Johnston moved down to reinforce the Confederate lines of the Peninsula, 
in time to save Magruder's little force from the pressure of enveloping 
armies. 

McClellan had been deceived twice as to the force in his front. He 
was to be outwitted twice by the strategy of retreat. Gen. Johnston 
decided neither to stand a siege nor to deliver a battle at Yorktown. The 
enemy was in largely superiour force, besides his additional strength in 
gunboats, and the object was to force him to more equal terms. It was 
readily seen by Johnston that in foiling back to defences already prepared 
nearer Richmond, and investing the line of the Chickahominy, he would 
obtain the opportunity of concentrating a large force in front of the capital, 
besides being unexposed to operations in his rear, which threatened him 
at Yorktown from McDowell's corps at Fredericksburg. It was the just 
and sagacious view of the situation, and again the great master of Con- 
federate strategy was to teach the enemy a lesson in the art of war. 

Johnston had obtained all the delay he desired in keeping the enemy 
before his lines ; and on the 4th day of May, when McClellan had nearly 
completed all his parallels, secured communications between the different 
batteries, and was almost ready to open fire on the town, the news came 
that the Confederate army had retired. 

The whole Federal army was, at once, put in motion to ]'>ursue. Tlio 
Confederate works were left intact, but excepting a few unwieldy colum- 
biads, all ordnance had been carried off. The men made " dummies," and 
put them in the embrasures, besides stuffing old clothes to represent senti- 
nels. The pursuing army toiled on througli rain falling in torrents, over 
roads deep in mud, the men straggling, falling out and halting without 
orders, and artillery, cavalry, infantry and baggage intermingled in 
apparently inextricable confusion. The scene had much more the appear- 
ance of the retreat of a defeated army than the advance of a successful 
one. 



THE BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBUKa. 267 



BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURG. 

It may be well imagined that McClellan, sorely disappointed, and 
knowing very well that the people of the North, who were already clam- 
ouring for a change of commanders, would not be satisfied with thebaiTcn 
oi^cupation of the deserted works of Yorktown, was anxious to snatch some 
601 1 of victory from the rear-guard of the Confederate retreat, which he 
might magnify in ofiicial dispatches and Northern newspapers. 

On the morning of the 5th May, Gen. Hooker's division of Heintzel- 
man's coi'ps came up near Williamsburg witli the Confederate rear-guard, 
commanded by Gen. Longstreet. The Federals were in a forest in front 
of Williamsburg ; but as Hooker came into the open ground, he was 
vigorously attacked, driven back with the loss of live guns, and with 
difficulty held the belt of wood which sheltered and concealed his men 
from the Confederate fire. Other forces of the enemy were moved up, 
until Gen. Longstreet was engaging nine brigades of the Federal army. 
During the whole of the day, from sunrise to sunset, he held McClcllan'a 
army in check, drove the enemy from two redoubts he had occupied, and 
secured Johnston's retreat so efiectually, that the next morning M'hen the 
rear guard moved off, it did so as undisturbed as if the enemy were a 
thousand miles distant. 

But Gen. Longstreet not only accomplished the important object of 
securing the retreat. He won a brilliant victory. Gen. McClellan him- 
self confessed a loss of 456 killed, 1,400 wounded, and 372 missing, 
making a total of 2,228. And Longstreet carried otT with him nine i)ieces 
of captured artillery. Yet so anxious was McClellan for the colour of 
victory that he dispatched to Washington news of a success, and repre- 
sented as the process of " driving rebels to the M'all," the leisurely retreat 
of Johnston to works around Richmond, prepared ten months ago under 
the prudent and skilful direction of Gen. Robert E. Lee, and already the 
amplest and strongest at any point in the Confederacy. 

The fact was that McClellan's army had received a serious check at 
Williamsburg, which, if Gen. Longstreet had been able to take advantage 
of it, might have been converted into a disastrous defeat. McClellan had 
also planned a flank movement uj^on Johnston's retreat. This perform- 
ance, too, proved a miserable failure, although the idea did credit to his 
genius. 

The design was that Franklin should move to West Point, the head of 
(he Yoi-k River, and disembark a large force there to assail Johnston on 
the flank. On the 7th of May, Franklin attempted a landing under cover 
of his gunboats, at Barhamsville near West Point. The attein])t Avas 
gall ntly repulsed by Whiting's division of Texas troops. The fight was 



268 THE LOST CAUSE 

wild and confused. Franklin hurriedly fell back before an inferiour force, 
and did not halt until under the guns of his flotilla. 

The incidents of Williamsburg and Barhamsville had been Confederate 
successes ; and Johnston's movement to the line of the Chickahominy 
turned out a most brilliant piece of strategy. He had secured the safe 
retreat of his army, together with his baggage and supply ti-ain, and, 
although forced by the configuration of the land, and the superiourity of 
the enemy on the water, to abandon the peninsula of Yorktown, he had 
done so in a manner which illustrated his genius, and insured the safety 
and efficiency of his army. 



EVACUATION OF NORFOLK DESTRUCTION OF THE " VIRGINIA. ' 

The retreat from Yorktown involved the surrender of Norfolk with all 
the advantages of its contiguous navy-yard and dock and the abandonment 
of the strong Confederate positions at SewelFs Point and Crancy Island. 
Here was the old story of disaster consequent upon haste and imperfect 
preparations. The evacuation was badly managed by Gen. Huger ; much 
property was abandoned, and the great dry -dock only partially blown up.* 

But the evacuation was attended by an incident, which was a painful 
surprise to the Confederate people, an occasion of grief and rage, and a 

* The circumstances of the evacuation of Norfolk were made the subject of an investigation in 
the Confederate Congress. Commodore Forrest testified as follows before the committee making the 
investigation : 

" I understood that it was the intention of the Government to withdraw the troops under Gen. 
Huger, for the protection of Richmond, and that the navy-yard and public buildings were to be de- 
stroyed. Upon learning this, I bad a conference with the Secretary of the Navy. I stated to him 
that I did not see any necessity for such a proceeding, and that if he would allow me to return, 
I could assure him that I would protect the yard and Norfolk from any attack that the enemy might 
make. lie asked me particularly in what manner I could do it. I explained to him that I had 
eleven hundred employees at the navy-yard, good and true men, that they had been exercised at 
great guns and small arms weekly for several months, and that there were guns mounted in what is 
called Forrest entrenchments, in Iwiette — four in all, containing each three or four guns of ibrty- 
one hundred weight, 32-pounders, and that I did not apprehend anything disastrous from Burnside's 
force ; tliat by placing the steamer Virginia in a proper position, I thouglit she miglit very well pro- 
tect the harbour, and even if Gen. Huger's army was taken away, 1 thought the citizens would aU 
turn out to man the batteries. To tliis he replied, they would starve us out. I informed bim that 
they could not very well do that for some time to come, that we had four hundred barrels of pork, 
and four hundred barrels of beef stowed in the yard ; that the forage there had been collected for 
three months for the cattle. To this he replied, that it had been determined upon as a military ne- 
cessity, and must be carried out. 

" Mr. Foote. What was the value of the navy-yard ? What do you conjecture the amount of 
the injury to be which we suffered from the destruction of the navy-yard ? 

" Commodore Forrest. Tliere Is a printed schedule taken by a commissioner appointed by the 
Govcrnour of the State of Virginia, which could be had from the Secretary of State of the Common- 
wealth. In that schedule it mentions the value of the public property to be $6,500,000, or there- 
abouts." 



DESTEtrCTION OF THE VIRGINIA. 269 

topic of violent comment in the Riclimond newspapers. The famons iron- 
clad Virginia, popularly said to be worth fifty thousand troops in the field, 
was destroyed by the orders of Commodore Tatnall, her commander. 
" The iron diadem of the South," exclaimed the Richmond Examiner^ 
" had been shattered by a wanton blow." 

The Yirginia had been unable to bring on a fight with the enemy's 
fleet. When McClellan was encamped before Yorktown, she appeared in 
Hampton Eoads, when the whole Federal fleet declined the combat, and 
with the vaunted Monitor took shelter beneath the guns of Fortress 
Monroe. On this occasion the Virginia, in sight of the enemy's fleet, car- 
ried oflT three schooners lying in the Roads almost within range of the guns 
of the fleet, and yet there w^as no movement to engage her ; and this spec- 
tacle, so galling to the ei^prit da corjps of the Federal navy, was witnessed 
by the French and English ships-of-war lying off Norfolk. 

After the enemy's occupation of ITorfolk, both shores of the James 
River came into possession of the Federal troops, who were therefore 
enabled to cut off the Virginia from her necessary supplies. Commodore 
Tatnall resolved to take the vessel up the river above the lines occupied 
by the enemy. According to his statement, he had been assured by her 
pilots that if the ship was lightened they would take her with a draught 
of eighteen feet of water within forty miles of Richmond. The ship was 
being lightened ; Commodore Tatnall had retired to bed, when another 
message was brought him that the ship had been so far lightened that her 
wooden hull below the plating was exposed, and that the pilots (Avhom 
Commodore Tatnall charged with cowardice and an unwillingness to en- 
gage in action) now declared that the westerly wind had so lowered the 
water in the river that it would be impossible to take the vessel above the 
Jamestown Flats, up to which point the shore on both sides was occupied 
by the enemy. The commander, aroused from his slumbers, and acquaint- 
ed with the decision of the pilots, ordered the vessel to be destroyed. Her 
decks and roof were saturated with oil, her crew were disembarked in small 
boats, trains of powder were laid from each port-hole to different parts of 
the vessel, and these were lighted at a given signal. Simultaneously the 
ship was on fire in many parts, and after burning several hours the flames 
reached the magazine, about four o'clock in the morning of the 11th of 
May, when the Virginia was blown up with an explosion heard many miles 
distant. Not a fragment was ever afterwards found of the only naval struc- 
ture that guarded the water approach to Richmond. 

" The Virginia," reported Commander Tatnall, " no longer exists. 
I presume that a court of inquiry will be ordered to examine into all the 
circumstances, and I earnestly solicit it. Public opinion will never be put 
right without it." The court was ordered, and public opinion was " put 
right " by its decision that the destruction of the Virginia was unneces- 



270 THE LOST CAUSE. 

B'dYj ; that she might have been taken np the James to a point of safety, 
where slie could still have barred the ascent of the liver ; and that then 
and there, if the worst ensued, was the time to decide upon the disposition 
to bo made of the vessel. 



NAVAL ENGAGEMENT AT DKEWRy's BLUFF. 

Tlie destruction of the Yirgiuia left the James River open for the ene- 
my's operations. The Galena, the Aroostook, the Monitor, Port Royal, 
and Nangatnck, steamed up the river on the 15th of May, under the com- 
mand of Commodore Rodgers, and without opposition advanced within 
twelve miles of Richmond. Here was a lialf-Hnished fort at what was 
called Drewry's BhifF, mounting four guns. The riv^er at this point was 
also obstructed by a double line of piles and sunken vessels, and the banks 
were lined with sharpshooters. It was a feeble barrier to Richmond ; the 
protection of the river had been entrusted to the Virginia ; and yet the 
fort proved a success, owing to the defect of the enemy's gunboats. 

The Galena and Monitor approached within six hundred yards of the 
batteries, but the guns of the latter proved useless, as they could not be 
elevated sufKciently to reach the work constructed on the blutf. The 
armour of the Galena w^as badly injured, and this river monster lost thirty 
of her crew in killed and wounded. Notwithstanding, the engagement 
continued for upwards of four hours, when the gunboats w^ere repulsed. 
The Confederate loss was five killed and seven wounded. This action was 
considered as proving that earthworks could not be reduced by gunboats, 
and decided the question for the enemy that the capture of Drewry's Bluff, 
and the water approach to Richmond were impracticable without the aid 
of a land force. 

The possession of the James River below Drewry's Bluff was of but 
little present advantage to McClellan, as his base of supplies was on the 
Pamunkey, from which point tliere was rail communication to Richmond. 
He had advanced within sight of the s^Dires of the Confederate capital. 
The investment of the line of the Chickahominy brought the two armies 
face to face within a few miles of Richmond, and opened one of the grand- 
est scenes of the war, exhibiting the strength and splendour of the opposing 
hosts, and apiDealing to the eye with every variety of picturesque effect. 
For nearl}'- a year an immense labour had been expended upon the fortifi- 
cations of Richmond. Earthworks of magnitude arose on every side. 
They were constructed in different shapes, to suit the conformation of the 
ground ; they swept all the roads, crowned every hillock, and mounds of 
red earth could be seen in striking contrast with the rich green of the 
landscape. Redoubts, rifle-pits, casemate batteries, horn works, and en- 



THE LINES AROUND EICHMOND. 271 

filading batteries "were visible in great number, in and out of the woods, in 
all directions. Beyond, through the open and cultivated country in the 
neighbourhood of Richmond stretched the camp of the enemy. Wooded 
heights overlooked them, and the numerous tents of the army, the vast 
trains of wagons, the powerful park of artillery, together with the fleet of 
steamers and transports, presented a striking contrast to the usually quiet 
country. 

The mere circumstance of McClellan's proximity to Richmond was, to 
tlie -siilgar mind of the North, an indication of his success. The fact that 
Lis army had marched unopposed to within a few miles of the city excited 
the hopes of the ignorant masses. Rumour each day in New York an- 
nounced the fall of Richmond. Nor was there any great feeling of security 
in the Confederate capital. There were alarm and excitement in the mixed 
and restless population of Richmond ; and the popular feeling found but 
little assurance in the visible tremour of the authorities. The Confederate 
Congress had adjourned in such haste as to show that the members were 
anxious to provide for their own personal safety. President Davis sent his 
family to North Carolina, and a part of the Government archives were 
packed ready for transportation. At the railroad depots were piles of 
baggage awaiting transportation, and the trains were crowded with women 
and children going to distant points in the country, and escaping from the 
alarm and distress in Richmond. 

But the panic, like all excitements of this sort, was soon subdued on 
reflection, and shamed by the counsels of the brave and intelligent. The 
newspapers rebuked it in severe terms. The shop-windows were filled with 
caricatures of the fugitives. Much of the alarm was turned into ridicule. 
A meeting of citizens, assembled on the 15th of May, in the City Hall, 
were addressed by Gov. Letcher and Mayor Mayo, and applauded the senti- 
ment that Richmond should be reduced to ashes before it should become 
a Yankee conquest. 

Tlie Legislature of Virginia acted with singular spirit, and led in the 
work of the restoration of public confidence. On the 14th of May it 
adopted the following resolution, which, indeed, deserves to be committed 
to history as an example of heroic fortitude and patriotic sacrifice : 

^'^ Besolved, by the General Assembly of Virginia, Tliat the General Assembly hereby 
expresses its desire that the capital of the State be defended to the last extremity^ if such 
defence is in accordance with the views of the President of the Confederate States, ajid 
that the President be assured that whatever destruction and loss of property of the State 
or individuals shall thereby result, will be cheerfully submitted to." 

To this exhibition of the spirit of Virginia, President Davis responded 
in lively terms. He stated to a committee of the Legislature, which called 
upon him to ascertain his views, that he had never entertained the thought 



272 THE LOST CAUSE. 

of withdrawing the army from Virginia and abandoning the State. But 
to some extent he spoiled the assurance by suggesting, in swollen words_ 
that even if Richmond should fall, " the war could still be successfully 
maintained on Yirginia soil for twenty years^'' 

The tardy battle for Richmond yet lingered. Public confidence and 
public courage rose each day of the delay. The eloquent press of Rich- 
mond was stirring the Southern heart. The Richmond Despatch wrote :• 
" If there is blood to be shed, let it be shed here ; no soil of the Confed- 
eracy could drink it up more acceptably and none would hold it more 
gratefully. Wife, family, and friends are nothing. Leave them all for 
one glorious hour to be devoted to the Rej^ublic. Life, death, and wounds 
are nothing, if we only be saved from the fate of a captured capital and a 
humiliated Confederacy. Let the Government act ; let the people act. 
There is time yet. " 

But while thus fluctuated the sentiment of Richmond there came an 
especial occasion to reanimate the cause of the Confederacy, to erect again 
the reputation of its arms, and to fill with gratitude and hope the hearts 
which had so long throbbed with anxiety in its besieged capital. That 
occasion was the splendid diversion of " Stonewall " Jackson in the Valley 
of Virginia. Public attention turned to the eccentric career of that com- 
mander to find a new hero, and an unexpected train of brilliant victories. 



Jackson's caivlpaign in the valley of vlkginla.. 

"When the principal scene of the war in Virginia was shifted from the 
lines of the Potomac, Gen. Jackson remained in the Shenandoah Valley. 
Ewell's division was sent to operate with him in that part of the State. 
The object of the combined force was to divert the army of McDowell at 
Fredericksburg from uniting with that of McCIellan ; and beyond this 
design the authorities at Richmond had no expectations from Jackson's 
small command. 

It was an idea originating with the adventurous commander himself to 
act on the aggressive, and to essay the extraordinary task of driving the 
Federal forces from the Valley, then there under the three commands of 
Banks, Fremont, and Shields. 

In order to understand the disposition of all the opposing forces at this 
time west of the Blue Ridge, it will be necessary to make a brief and rapid 
resume of operations and movements in that quarter for some weeks pre- 
vious, so as to put before the reader a comprehensive scene and an intelli- 
gent situation. 

The disposition of the enemy's forces west of the Blue Ridge was de- 
signed to co-operate with McDowell at Fredericksbm*g. They include<J 



JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN IN THE VALLEY. 273 

the troops of Banks and Shields in the Shenandoah Valley, and those of 
Milroy, Blenker, and Fremont in Western Virginia. As soon as Jackson 
had been reinforced by Swell's division, which crossed the Blue Kidge at 
HcGackeysville, the commander proceeded in person to the position of 
Gen. Edward Johnson's little force, which was drawn up in a narrow val- 
ley, at a village called McDowell, with the heavy brigades of Milroy and 
Blenker in line of battle before them. The enemy was driven here after 
a brief engagement. Learning that his success at McDowell had so fright- 
ened Milroy and Blenker that they had called upon Fremont, who was a 
few inarches behind, Jackson determined to deceive them and fall back. 
Moving at a fast rate down the Valley Pike, he proceeded to Kewmarket, 
and was there joined by Ewell's force, which had been awaiting him at 
Swift Run Gap. The whole force now amounted to about fourteen thou- 
sand men ; and after a little rest, proceeded across the Shenandoah 
Mountains. 

Let us see how now stood the forces of the enemy. When Shields, 
who had followed Jackson sin(;e the battle of Kernstown, found him 
strongly posted at McGackeysville, he declined to advance against him- 
and, withdrawing his forces from between Woodstock and Harrisonburg, 
he regained the Valley, determined to push on towards McDowell at 
Fredericksbui'g. Banks had his force scattered up and down the Valley, 
the rear being at Front Royal. Blenker and Milroy were similarly bound 
through Western Virginia, but their defeat had diverted Fremont from his 
proper route, who immediately w^ent to their assistance. Thinking, there- 
fore, that Jackson was busily engaged in that distant quarter, and not 
likely to trouble them in the Valley again. Banks and Shields were com- 
mencing a movement towards Fredericksbni-g, unconscious of danger, when, 
on the morning of May 22d, Jackson and Ewell, with fourteen thousand 
men, were meditating an attack on their rear at Front Royal. 

The rear-guard, consisting of the First Maryland Regiment, may be 
said to have been almost annihilated. Every man was killed, wounded, or 
captui-ed, save fifteen ; nine hundred prisoners were taken on the retreat 
towards Strasburg ; and a vast quantity of the enemy's stores was de- 
stroyed. At the fii'st shock of the actioTi, Banks had his army in motion 
from Strasburg ; he feared that Jackson, moving from Front Royal on the 
converging road to Winchester, might cut him off from that supposed place 
of safety. His fears were nearly ]-ealized ; for at Middletown Jackson 
pierced his main column, took a number of prisoners, demoralized the 
retreat, and having driven a part of his rear towards Strasburg, turned 
on hot pursuit to Winchester. 

On the 24:th of May, Banks' army, in frantic retreat, entered the streets 
of Winchester. The citizens received them with shouts of derision. Many 
of the fugitives were on the run ; some shots were fired from the windows 
18 



274 THE LOST CAUSE. 

of houses ; ordnance exploded ; cavalry rode down stragglers ; bands of 
plunderers hastily entered houses, bayonetted then- occupants, and in ono 
wild scene of unrestrained disorder, fury, and cowardice. Banks' army 
passed out of the ancient town, where the enemy had so long ruled in the 
insolence cf power. 

Banks' army had stood but a few moments before "Winchester, and 
had broken under a distant fire of artillery. He had evidently no disposi- 
tion to test the substance and strength of the foe by actual collision, and 
was only desirous to place the Potomac between himself and the danger 
of action. Never was there such a shameful retreat ; such a deliberate 
abandonment by a commander of everything but the desire for safety. In 
forty-eight hours after he had got the first news of the attack on Front 
Royal, Banks was on the shore of the Potomac, having performed thirty- 
five miles of the distance on the last day of the retreat. 

The fruits of Jackson's two days' operations were immense. Banks had 
escaped with the loss of all the material and paraphernalia that constitute 
an army. He had abandoned at "Winchester all his comiTiissary and ord- 
nance stores. He had resigned that town and Front Boyal to the undis- 
puted possession of the Confederates. He had left in their hands four 
thousand prisoners, and stores amounting to millions of dollars. It was a 
rapid stroke and a splendid success which Jackson had made. Tidings of 
his victory were communicated to the Confederate army around Eichmond 
in general orders. " The Federal army," wrote Gen. Johnston, "has been 
dispersed and ignominiously driven from the Valley of the Shenandoah, 
and those who have freed the loyal citizens of that district b}'' their patriotic 
valour, have again earned, as they will receive, the thanks of a grateful 
country. In making this glorioiis announcement, on the eve of the mem- 
orable struggle about to ensue, the Commanding General does not deem it 
necessary to invoke the troops of this army to emulate the deeds of their 
noble comrades in the Yalley." * 

In falling back from Winchester, Gen. Jackson had to run the danger 
of being enveloped by the converging columns of Fremont and Shields. 
He succeeded (" through the blessing of an ever kind Providence ") in 
reaching Strasburg, before the two Federal armies could effect their contem- 
plated junction in his rear. On the 5th of June he reached Harrisonburg, 
and, passing beyond that town, turned towards the east in the direction 
uf Port Republic. 

On the movement from Harrisonburg occurred the melancholy incl- 

* We may imagine the historical value of Federal official documents on reading Gen. Banks' 
report of the events we have related. The drama from Strasburg to the Potomac is thus ej. itemized : 

" My command had not suffered an attack and rout, but accomplished a premeditated march (!) 
of near sixty miles, in the face of the enemy (!), defeating his plans and giving lum battle wherever 
he was found (! !)." 



BATTLES OF CKOSS-KEYS AND POKT KEL'VBLIC. 275 

dent of tlio deatli of the famous cavalry commander of the Yalle j, Turnci 
Ashbj, whose name was connected with nmch of the romance of the war, 
and whose gentle enthusiastic courage, simple Christian faith, and royal 
passion for danger, constituted him one of the noblest and most beautiful 
types of modern chivalry. On the road from Harrisonburg to Port 
Republic, the 5Sth Virginia- became engaged with the Peunsyls'^ania 
Eucktails. Col. Johnson came up with the Maryland regiment, and by a 
dashing charge in flank drove the enemy ofi' with heavy loss. Ashby was 
on the right of the 58tli Virginia, and had just commanded a charge of 
bayonets upon the enemy, concealed in a piece of woods, when he fell dead 
not many yards from a fence where a concealed marksman had sped the 
fatal bullet. Gen. Jackson's tribute to the fallen officer, whose active and 
daring cavalry had so often co-operated with his arms, was an ejctraordi- 
nary one, considering the habitual measure of this great man's words. He 
wrote of Ashby : " As a partisan officer I never knew his superionr. His 
daring was proverbial ; his powers of endurance almost incredible ; his tone 
of character heroic, and his sagacity almost intuitive in divining the pur- 
poses and movements of the enemy." 



BATTLES OF CKOSS-KEYS AND TOKT REPUBLIC. 

On the 7tli of June the main body of Gen. Jackson's command had 
reached the vicinity of Port Kepublic. The village is situated in the angle 
formed by the junction of the North and South Rivers, tributaries of the 
south fork of the Shenandoah. The larger portion of Jackson's command 
was encamped on the high ground north of the village, abont a mile from 
the river. Gen. Ewell was some four miles distant, near the road leading 
from Harrisonburg to Port Republic. Gen. Fremont had arrived with his 
forces in the vicinity of Harrisonburg, and Gen. Shields was moving up 
the east side of the south fork of the Shenandoah, and was then some 
■fifteen miles below Port Republic. Gen. Jackson's position was about 
equi-distant from both hostile armies. To prevent a junction of the two 
Federal armies, he had caused the bridge over the sonth fork of the Shen- 
andoah at Conrad's store to be destroyed. 

Fremont had seven brigades of infantry besides numerous cavalry. 
Ewell had three small brigades during the greater part of the a(;tion that 
was to ensue, and no cavalry at any time. His force was short of five 
thousand men. About ten o'clock the enemy felt along his front, posted 
liis artillery, and, with two brigades, made an attack on Trimble's brigade 
on the right. Gen. Trimble repulsed this force, and, advancing, drove the 
enemy more than a mile, and remained on his flank ready to make the 
final attack. At a late hour of the afternoon, Gen. Ewell advanced both 



276 THE LOST CAUSE. 

his wings, drove in the enemy's skiiTnishers, and, when night closed, waa 
in possession of all the ground previously held by the enemy. 

The victory — known as that of Cross-Keys — had been purchased by a 
small Confederate loss : 42 killed and 287 wounded. Gen. Ewell officially 
estimated the enemy's loss at 2,000. Gen. Fremont officially gives it at 
625 — exhibiting rather more than the usual difference between Federal 
and Confederate figures. 

Meanwhile Gen. Jackson was preparing to give the final blow to 
Shields on the other side of the river; and on the morning after their 
victory, Ewell's forces were recalled to join in the attack at Port Republic. 
As day broke they commenced their march to the other field of battle 
seven miles distant. 

The enemy had judiciously selected his position for defence. Upon a 
rising ground near the Lewis House, he had planted six guns, which com- 
manded the road from Port Republic, and swept the plateau for a consid- 
erable distance iu front. As Gen. Winder moved forward his brigade, a 
rapid and severe fire of shell was opened upon it. The artillery fire was 
well sustained by our batteries, which, liov/ever, proved unequal to that of 
the enemy. In the meantime. Winder, being now reinforced by a Louisiana 
regiment, seeing no mode of silencing the Federal battery, or escaping its 
destructive missiles but by a rapid charge, and the capture of it, advanced 
with great boldness for some distance, but encountered such a heavy fire of 
artillery and small arms as greatly to disorganize his command, which feU 
back in disorder. The enemy advanced across the field, and, by a heavy 
musketry fire, forced back our infantry supports, in consequence of which 
our guns had to retire. 

It was just at this crisis, when the day seemed lost, that Ewell's forces 
appeared upon the scene. Two regiments — the 58th and 44th Yirginia — 
rushed with a shout upon the enemy, took him in flank and drove him 
back, for the first time that day in disorder. Meanwhile Gen. Taylor was 
employed on the Federal left and rear, and, his attack diverting attention 
from the front, led to a concentration of the enemy's force upon him. 
Here the battle raged furiously. Although assailed by a superiour force 
in front and flank, with their guns in position within point blank range, 
the charge ordered by Taylor was gallantly made, and the enemy's bat- 
tery, consisting of six guns, fell into our hands. Three times was this bat- 
tery lost and won in the desperate and determined efforts to capture and 
recover it. At last, attacked in front and on flank, Taylor fell back to a 
skirt of woods. Winder, having rallied his command, moved to his sup- 
port, and again opened upon the enemy, who were moving upon Taylor's 
left flank, apparently to surround him in the wood. The final attack was 
made. Taylor, with the reinforcement, pushed forward ; he was assisted 
by the well-directed fire of our artillery ; the enemy fell back ; a few 



BATTLES OF CKOSS-KEYS AND TOET REPUBLIC. 277 

moments more, and he was in precipitate retreat. Four hundred and fifty 
prisoners were taken in the pursuit, and what remained of the enemy's 
artillery. 

While the forces of Shields were in full retreat, Fremont appeared on 
the opposite bank of the south fork of the Shenandoah, with his army, and 
opened his artillery with but little efi'ect. Tlie next day withdrawing his 
forces, he retreated down the Valley. The battle of Port Republic closed 
the campaign of the Yalley. It had been fiercely contested by the enemy, 
and the Confederate loss was quite one thousand in killed and wounded. 
But the termination of the campaign found Jackson crowned with an al- 
most marvellous success. In little more than two weeks, he had defeated 
three Federal armies ; swept the Yalley of Virginia of hostile forces ; thrilled 
Washington with alarm ; and thwarted whatever plan the enemy might 
have entertained, in other circumstances, of environing Richmond by large 
converging armies. 

On the 12th of June Jackson encamped near Weyer's Cave. Here the 
pious commander paused, to hold divine service in his army in commemo- 
ration of his victories. He was to be here but a few days before receiving 
orders to move towards Richmond, and to join in the impending contest 
for the capital. 



CHAPTER XYII. 

THH TARDINESS OF m'cLELLAN. — HOW THE C0NTEDEEATE3 AVAILED THEMSELVES OF IT. — • 
THKIK CONOENTEATIOX OF FORCES AT EICHMOND. — STRENGTH OF THESE FORCES. — POSI- 
TION OF THE TWO ARMIES. — THE CHICKAHOMINY AND THE ROADS CROSSING IT. — BATTLK 
OF " SEVEN PINES." — FAILURE OF GEN. HUGER TO ATTACK. — GALLANT CHARGE OF THE 
TROOPS OF LONGSTEEET AND HILL. — GEN. JOHNSTON "WOUNDED. — THE AFFAIR OF THE 
NEXT DAY. — IMPORTANT CHANGE OF MILITAET COMMAND. — SECRET HISTOEY OF THB 
ATTEMPT TO LIMIT THE MILITAEY POWER OF PEESIDENT DAVIS. — A PLAN OF CONFED- 
ERATE POLITICIANS. PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT'S POWER. — THE NEW OFFICE OF 

COMMANDING-GENERAL OF THE CONFEDERATES. HOW MADE NOMINAL BY PEESIDENT 

DAVIS. GEN. EGBERT E. LEE APPOINTED TO THIS OFFICE. HIS APPEARANCE AND MAN- 
NERS. — THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES AROUND RICHMOND. — LEE's PLAN OF OPERATIONS. 

.TACKSON'S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE VALLEY MASKED. BATTLES OF MECHANICSVILLK AND 

BEAVER DAM. — REPULSE OF THE CONFEDERATES AT BEAVER DAM CREEK. — JACKSON 
FLANKS THE ENEMy's POSITION. m'cLELLAN's RETREAT TO GAINES' MILLS. — ITS STRAT- 
EGIC DESIGN. EXTRAORDINARY STRENGTH OF THE NEW POSITION. — GEN. LEE WAITING 

FOR THE GREAT BATTLE. BATTLE OF GAINES' MILLS. — HEROIC FIGHT OF IIILl's DIVISION. 

THE ENEMY GAINS GROUND. AN URGENT MESSAGE TO LONGSTREET. JACKSON AP- 
PEARS. FINAL CHAEGE OF THE DAY. ITS FIERCE GRANDEUR. VICTORY OF THE CON- 
FEDERATES. — m'cLELLAN RETREATS TOWARDS THE JAMES RIVER. — FAILURE OF MAGRUDER 
AND HUGER TO INTERCEPT HIM. — THE GREAT ERROUR WHICH THEY COMMITTED. — BATTLE 
OF SAVAGE STATION. — m'cLELLAN CROSSES WHITE OAK SWAMP.— FAILURE OF HUGEr's 
ATTACK. — ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY LOST. — BATTLE OF FRAZIEr's FARM. — HILL AND LONG- 
STREET's TROOPS ONLY ENGAGED. — BATTLE OF MALVERN HILL. — m'cLELLAN's POSITION ON 

THE HILL. HIS NUMEROUS ARTILLERY. THE ATTACK OF THE CONFEDERATE LEFT NOT 

SUPPORTED. — MAGRUDEr's IMPETUOUS AND DESPERATE CHARGE. THE SUBLIME SCENERY 

OF THE CONTEST. — FAILURE OF THE ATTACr. m'cLELLAN CONTINUES HIS RETREAT TO 

Harrison's landing. — fruits of the confederate success. — gen. lee's explanation 

OF m'cLELLAN's escape. — estimate of the victory by lee and stonewall JACKSON. 
— RICHMOND ERECT AND EXULTANT. 

The tardiness of McClellan afforded opportunity to tlie Confederatea 
to recruit tbeir forces, to realize the results of the conscription law, and to 
assemble before Kichmond the largest armj they were ever able to put on 
a single field in any time of the war. The enemy had had tlie start in tho 
preparation of many months. He delayed the advance upon Richmond, 
hesitating which line to adopt, when an advance upon either of the pro- 
posed lines could hardly have failed of success. A month was lost beibro 



THE RICHMOND IJNE8." 279 

the advance was begun. Another month was occupied in the siege of 
Yorktown, where McClellan was held in check by eleven thousand men. 
Three weeks more were taken up in the cautious advance across the Pen- 
insula. Thus three full months were lost by the Federal army before it 
was fairly in the neighbourhood of Richmond, and every day of these 
months was employed by the Confederates in enlarging their resources of 
defence. 

Having reached the Chickahominy, McClellan threw a portion of his 
army across the river, and, having thus established his left, proceeded to 
pivot upon it, and to extend his right by the right bank of the Pamunkey, 
BO as to get to the north of Richmond. "While conducting this manoeuvre 
and delaying an attack, the Confederate army was rapidly receiving rein- 
forcements, and draM'ing troops from distant points to make a decisive 
battle. Iluger's army, from Norfolk, united witli Johnston before Rich- 
mond ; forces, under Branch, in Korth Carolina, were rapidly brought for- 
ward by rail ; and even as far as Charleston, troops were withdrawn to 
match Johnston's numbers as far as possible with those of the enemy. 
And in this instance the match of numbers was probably closer than ever 
before or afterwards in the great conflicts of the war. With Jackson's 
command in the Valley which it was intended to put on the Richmond 
lines at the proj)er moment, the force defending the Confederate capital 
may be estimated at about ninety thousand men ; and McClellan's, consid- 
ering his losses on the Peninsula, could scarcely be more than one hundred 
and twenty or thirty thousand men. 

In the last days of May the position of the two armies around Rich- 
mond is described by the Chickahominy. This stream, tracing through 
heavy forests and swamps east of Richmond from a north-westerly to a 
Bouth-casterly direction, formed the respective fronts of the two armies — 
the Confederates occupying the western, the Federals the eastern banks. 
The line occupied by the enemy was nearly a right line from north-west to 
south-east. His forces were stretched from a short distance above New 
Bridge, where his right rested, to Bottom's Bridge, which constituted his 
left. The line was about ten miles long. Across it ran five roads in the 
following order, from west to east : the Brook turnpike ; the Mechanics- 
ville turnpike, (Mechanicsville being a village on the north side of the 
Chickahominy) ; the Nine Mile road ; York River railroad ; the Willlams- 
bui-g road ; the Charles City road ; and the Darby town road. 

Before the 30th of May, Gen. Johnston had ascertained that McClellan 
had thrown his left forward to a point within six miles of Richmond, a 
mile in front of a point locally designated the " Seven Pines," where 
Casey's division was posted. Couch's division was encamped in his rear, 
his right resting in front of Fair Oaks station, about six miles due east of 
Richmond. Gen. Kejes commanded both divisions. In front there waa 



280 THE LOST CAUSE. 

a heavy forest, and a screen of dense imdergrowth. A terrific thunder 
storm had taken place on the night of the 29th of May, and floods of rain 
spirting in broad jets, had so swollen the Chickahominy in Keyes' rear, 
that Johnston indulged the prospect of having to deal with no other troops 
than those of this corps. In these circumstances, on the morning of the 
30th May, he moved out to annihilate the enemy's left. 



BATTLE OF SEVEN PINES. 

Gen. Johnston's plan of battle was to embrace an attack at three points. 
Gen. D. II. Hill, supported by the division of Gen. Longstreet, (who had 
the direction of operations on the right,) was to advance by the Williams- 
burg road, to attack the enemy in front ; Gen. Huger, with his division, 
was to move down the Charles City road, in order to atack in flank the 
troops who might be engaged with Ilill and Longstreet ; Gen. Smith was 
to march to the junction of the New Bridge road and the Nine Mile road, 
to be in readiness either to fall on Keyes's right flank, or to cover Long- 
street's left. 

The greater part of the day was lost in vain expectation of Iluger's 
movement — the most important part of the design, as it was to take the 
enemy's flank and insure his destruction. The movement was disap- 
pointed, as Huger could not cross the swollen stream in his front. At a 
late hour in the afternoon Longstreet determined to move upon the enemy 
with his own and Hill's division, and accomplish whatever results were 
possible in the far-spent day. Gen. Johnston remained with Smith on the 
left, to observe the field. 

Through the thick woods, on marshy ground, in water in many places 
two feet deep, Longstreet's regiments moved on, brushing off occasionally 
a cloud of skirmishers that disputed their passage. As they came upon 
the enemy's works, a sheet of fire blazed in their faces. It was sharp, 
rapid work. Some of the regiments crept tln-ough the low brushwood in 
front of the redoubt, and, at a given signal from the flanking parties, made 
a rush for the guns, cleared them, and, entering pell-mell into the earth- 
work, bayonetted all who opposed them. Line after line of the enemy's 
works was carried ; the victorious career of the Confederates swept through 
his successive camps and entrenchments ; and as night fell he had been 
driven about two miles, and had left a track of retreat through swamp 
and water red with carnage. 

On the left, where Johnston commanded in person, the enemy held his 
position until dark ; Smith's division, with a portion of Whiting's, failing 
to dislodge him. On this part of the field Gen. Johnston was disabled by 
a severe wound in the shoulder. 



BATTLE OF SEVEX PINKS. 281 

TliG work of carnage in a few hours of dayliglit had been terrible 
The Confederate loss was more than four thousand. That of tlie enemy 
was stated in Northern journals to have exceeded ten thousand. McClellan 
officially states it at 5,739. The visible fruits of our victory were ten pieces of 
cannon, six tliousand stand of arms, one garrison flag, four stand of regiment- 
al colors, a large number of tents, besides much camp equipage and stores. 

On the following day, June 1, the enemy, having thrown across the 
Chickahominy two additional divisions, under command of Gen. Sumner, 
attacked the brigade of Gen. Pickett, which was supported by that of Gen. 
Pryor. The attack was vigorously repelled by these two brigades, the 
brunt of the light falling on General Pickett. This was tlie last demon- 
stration made by the enemy. This action, really of no consequence, was 
magnilied in McClellan's dispatches as " the Battle of Fair Oaks," thus 
giving to the Northern public a new and most undue " sensation " to 
counteracr. the defeat of the previous important day. 

It must be admitted that the Confederate public was but little affected 
by the victory of Seven Pines. It was a splendid feat of arms ; but it 
accomplished no important results, and the ground which it gained was 
unimjjortant, and was speedily abandoned. Had Huger obeyed orders, 
Johnston might have demolished the enemy ; as it was, McClellan's left 
was routed and demoralized, and we had gained nothing more substantial 
than a brilliant battle, when it had been intended to have embraced an 
attack at three points, and probably all along the line, if the enemy had 
accepted it. 

The disabling wound, wliich Gen. Johnston had received, was the occa- 
sion of an important change of military conmiands. The Confederate 
Congress had some time ago passed a bill creating the office of command- 
ing general, who should take charge of the military movements of the war. 
This measure was one of great significance, as the early attempt in the 
Confederacy to abolish the bipartite character of the Executive office, and 
to supply two agents for the management of the war. 

The merits of the proposed reform were long a theme of discussion in 
the Confederacy. The President in his Executive capacity was the ser- 
vant of Congress, and, therefore, could have nothing of the dictator in his 
action ; but as " Im.peraiory or commander-in-chief of the army and navy, 
he might be almost despotic in the exercise of his powers. The army regu- 
lations would be his " Constitution ; " but with tlie power to till courts- 
martial with his creatures, his authority would be limited very much by his 
own will, and all appeals from their decisions would be from him the 
Imperator to him the civil magistrate. Tlic th.eory of such a power was 
evidently on the verge of despotism. Abolish the habeas corpus, and the 
President, with his full bipartite powers, would be an autocrat, if he had 
the tact to be so without raising the anger of the people until he estab- 



282 THE LOST CAUSE. 

lislied himself on firm grounds. Experience in the old Union had suf- 
ficiently taught the Confederates what little safety to public liberty was 
to be expected from the representatives of the people, when Executive 
patronage was brought to bear ; and indicated the additional lesson that 
even where the Executive officer had not sufticient ability to be danger- 
ous, he might become the tool of a prescriptive and tyrannical party. 

After the first battle of Manassas, a certain adviser of President Davis, 
who had some experience of the Congress at Montgomery, and knew the 
numerous efforts to shape the action of the government in favour of local 
interests, drew his attention to the bipartite nature of his office, and urged 
him to assume more of the Imperator, as the best and speediest manner 
of concentrating our forces for decisive action. From a conscientious 
regard to the advisory power of Congress, President Davis then declined 
to do this. How could he, as the executive officer of Congress, do it ? 
Were not the two offices in one person clearly antagonistic ? The conse- 
quence was, that before the end of the first year of the war it was manifest 
that a clear head and a vigorous will were wanting in the administration 
of military matters. The conclusion came to be almost unanimous in the 
public mind that the civil and military affairs of the Confederacy could 
not be conducted by one head, and should be separated into two distinct 
offices. It was argued that this plan involved the least danger to public 
liberty ; that the civil and military powers being, each, in the control of 
one cleai- head and strong hand, would probably be most effectually exer- 
cised in the accomplishment of our independence, and tliat the two heads 
would not be as likely to unite for any end injurious to the public liberty 
as a Cabinet of weak, plastic characters, put in place and held in hand by 
one man. 

In consequence of these views, a plan was matured by several leading 
Confederate politicians, having for its object the division of the Executive 
powers between a civil ruler, who should carry out the designs of Congress 
and watch over the liberties of the people and the safety of the Constitu- 
tion, and a military leader, lmperatoi\ or commander-in-chief, who should 
be entrusted with the conduct of the war, and look to Congress and the 
Executive for the means to carry out his plan. 

The scheme was this : Gen. R. E. Lee was to be commander-in-chief 
and have the army of the Potomac ; Johnston to be entnisted with the 
war in the Valley of the Mississippi East ; Price in Missouri ; Ivirby 
Smith in Louisiana and Texas ; Bragg in the South ; Beauregard in the 
South-east, while Jackson, Longstreet, Hill, Whiting, and the other pro- 
mising ofiicers were to carry out their views. The commanders of divi- 
sions, above named, were to constitute a board of advisers to Congress, and 
each to be entrusted with discretionary powers in his own district. 

President Davis was probably aware of the details of this early plot 



THE SEVEN DATS' BATTLES AKOUND RICHMOND. 283 

against his power. lie vetoed the bill creating the office of commanding 
general. But being personally well affected towards Lee, lie took occasion 
of Johnston's disability to put the firs/" not only in command of the field 
before Kichmond, but to appoint him to the nominal office of commanding 
general, tlie order providing that he should " act under direction of tlie 
President." It was the successful career of the Confederacy from this 
date that for a time put out of mind the design upon the military auto- 
cracy of President Davis ; but we shall hereafter see how this design was 
renewed, in what portentous circumstances it afterwards appeared, and 
how it assumed the tone and air of an almost revolutionary demand. 

Gen. Lee assumed his new and important command with characteristic 
eimplicity. He was naturally quiet, thoughtful and polite ; and he was 
one of those rare men whose modesty became more conspicuous at each 
ascending stage of power and responsibility. A stranger would scarcely 
have recognized in the quiet gentleman who in a plain grey suit, without 
any insignia of rank, rode each day about the lines of Richmond, scarcely 
attracting observation, the man whose genius and resources commanded 
the unbounded confidence and hope of the Confederate people. 



THE SEVEN DAYS BATTLES AKOUND EICHilOND. 

Gen. Lee's plan of operations around Richmond was soon formed. It 
was very simple and comprehensive ; and is at once understood on a gen- 
eral survey of the positions of the opposing armies. McClellan's base of 
supplies was near the head of York River. His left was established south 
of the Chickahominy, between White Oak Swamp and Kew Bridge, 
defended by a line of strong works. His right wing lay north of the 
Chickahominy, extending beyond Mechanicsville, the approaches from 
the south side being strongly defended by entrenchments. Lee's army 
was around Richmond ; the divisions of linger and Magruder, supported 
by those of Longstreet and D. II. Hill, in front of the enemy's left, and 
tliat of A. P. Hill extending fom Magruder's left beyond Meadow Bridge. 

The intention of the enemy seemed to be to attack Richmond by 
regular approaches. The strength of his left wing rendered a direct 
assault injudicious, if not impracticable. It was therefore determined by 
Gen. Lee to construct defensive lines so as to enable a part of his army to 
defend the city, and leave the other j)art free to cross the Chickahominy, 
dnd operate on the north bank. By sweeping down the river on that side, 
tnd threatening his communications with York river, it was thought that 
the enemy would be compelled to retreat or give battle out of his en 
trench m en ts. 

We have already noticed the operatr.>n3 of Gen. Jackson's commandj 



284 THE LOST CAUSE, 

» 

including Ewell's division, in the Shenandoah Yalley, and seen Low success- 
ful they were in diverting the army of McDowell at Fredericksburg from 
uniting with that of McClellan. It was now important to summon the force 
to the defence of Richmond, and to do so with secrecy and dispatch. To 
mask his withdrawal from the Yallcy at the proper time, Jackson, after 
the defeat of Fremont and Shields, was reinforced by Whiting's division, 
composed of Hood's Texas brigade, and his own, under Colonel Law, frorai 
Richmond, and that of Lawton from the South. The deception succeeded 
oven beyond expectation ; and there is reason to suppose that McClellan 
remained in profound ignorance of Jackson's movement until his appari- 
tion on the lines of Richmond. 

According to Lee's general order of battle, Gen. Jackson was to march 
from Ashland on the 25tli of June, in the direction of Slash Church, 
encamping for the night west of the Central railroad, and to advance at 
three, a. m., on the 26th, and turn Beaver Dain. A. P. Hill was to cross 
the Chickahominy at Meadow Bridge, when Jackson's advance beyond 
that point should be known, and. move directly upon Mechanicsville. As 
soon as the Mechanicsville bridge should be uncovered, Longstreet and D. 
H. Hill were to cross, the latter to proceed to the support of Jackson, and 
the former to that of A. P. Hill. The four commands were directed to 
sweep down the north side of the Chickahominy towards the York River 
I'ailroad, Jackson on the left and in advance, Longstreet nearest the river 
and in the rear. Huger and Magruder were ordered to hold their posi- 
tions against any assault of the enemy, to observe his movements, and 
follow him closely should he retreat. 

Battles of Jfechanicsville and Beaver Dam. 

A. P. Hill did not commence his movement until three o'clock in the 
afternoon, when he crossed the river and advanced upon Mechanicsville. 
This place had been strongly fortified by Fitz-Jolm Porter, whose services 
as an engineer and artillerist were highly valued by McClellan. As the 
Confederates advanced on Porter's works, artillery on both sides opened 
with a terrific roar. A deafening cannonade of half an hour disturbed 
the last hours of evening. The flash of guns, and long lines of musketry 
lire could be seen in bright relief against the blue and cloudless sky. As 
night drew on, a grander scene was presented to the eye. Barns, houses 
and stacks of hay and straw were in a blaze ; and by their light our men 
were plainly visible rushing across the open spaces through infernal 
showers of grape. A few moments more and the Federal guns were 
silent ; a loud noise of many voices was heard ; and then a long, wild, 
piercing yell, and the place was ours. 

The enemy was now forced to take refuge in his works on the ^eft 
bank of Beaver Dam creek, about a mile distant. The position was ono 



BATTLES OF MECnANICSVILLE AND BEAVER DAM. 285 

of extraordinary strength ; the banks of the creek in front were high and 
almost pei'pendicnhir ; the apj)roach to it "was over open fields ; there were 
no bridges, and the ditiiciilty of crossing the stream had been increased by 
felling the woods on its banks. It was thought that the only possible 
method in which the position could be attacked was to cross the creek and 
swamp Jiigher up ; and it was expected that Jackson would pass Beaver 
Dam above, and turn the enemy's right. 

In the meantime Longstrcet and D. IT. Hill crossed the Mechanicsville 
bridge as soon as it was uncovered, and could be repaired. It was late 
before they reached the north bank of the Chickahominy. D. II. Hill's 
leading brigade under Ripley advanced to the support of the troops en- 
gaged, and at a late hour united with Pender's brigade of A. P. Hill's 
division in an effort to turn the enemy's left. In the excitement and dark- 
ness, Ripley advanced his line through the open fields, and had reached the 
road and swamp in front, when suddenly the enemy opened with grape, 
at seventy yards, and mowed down whole files of our men. The word to 
" charge ; " ran from wing to wing, and our men running down the bank 
to the road beneath, were stopped by the impassable swamp and abattis ; 
to the right, up the rising road, cannon also blazed in their faces, and well- 
posted infantry poured in showers of small shot. Retreat was the only 
alternative, and under cover of the darkness, it was effected with little 
additional loss. The fire was continued until about nine o'clock in the 
night, when the engagement ceased ; and thus closed the first day of the 
battles around Richmond. 

In the morning of the 27th June Jackson's arrival on the enemy's left 
was still looked for. In expectation of it the battle "svas renewed at dawn. 
The fight continued with animation for about two hours. As the sun 
brilliantly rose over the tree-tops, illumining the field, the line of fight 
with its stream of fire ; bursting of caissons, shouts, yells ; the centre 
occupied by the strong redoubt ; crowds of combataiits rashing in the 
charge ; soldiers reeling, bleeding, shouting, powder-blackened and faint- 
ing, madly firing random shots, ^nd sinking from fatigue, formed a scene 
that was at once soul-stirring, sublime and horrible. But while this 
terrible and critical action was going on, Jackson was rapidly approaching 
to decide it. lie had at last succeeded in crossing Beaver Dam creek 
above the enemy's position ; and the Federals no so(mer perceived it than 
they abandoned their entrenchments, and retired rapidly down the river. 

No time was now to be lost. Gen. Lee readily perceived that McClel- 
lan had endeavoured to force Porter into an energetic resistance thus far, 
to gain time to protect his centre on the north bank, situated in the neigh 
bourhood of Gaines' Mills, near the river. As soon as the bridges over 
Beaver Dam could be re])aired the several columns resumed their march. 
Longstreet and A. P. Hill moved along th? edge of the Chickahominy on 



286 THE LOST CAUSE. 

the rignt ; while Jackson, with whom D, H. Hill had united, was still fai 
to the left, threatening the enemy's right rear as he gradually converged 
towards the river. 

The position which McClellan had taken at Gaines' Mills was evidently 
intended for a decisive field. Here was to occur the heavy and obstinuto 
battle for Richmond. The enemy occupied a range of hills, with his left 
on a wooded bluff, which rose abruptly from a deep ravine. The ravine 
was filled with sharpshooters, to whom its banks gave protection. A 
second line of infantry was stationed on the side of a hill, behind a breast- 
work of trees, above the first. A third occupied the crest, strengthened 
with rifle trenches, and crowned with artillery. The approach to this posi- 
tion was over an open plain, about a quarter of a mile wide, connnauded 
by this triple line of fire, and swept by the heavy batteries south of the 
Chickahominy. In front of his centre and right, the ground was generally 
open, bounded on the side of our approach by a wood, with dense and 
tangled undergrowth, and traversed by a sluggish stream which converted 
the soil into a deep morass. 

Gen. Lee, having taken up his headquarters at a house on. Ilogan'a 
plantation, awaited quietly the moment when his word of command would 
join the most important battle of the war. It was past noon. The 
columns of Hill and Longstreet halted in the open ground to await the 
an'ival of Jackson's right at New Cold Harbour, Gen. Lee, quiet and 
serious, sat alone in the rear portico of Hogan's house. A crowd of military 
dignitaries were gathered in council upon the front door-steps and on the 
grassy sward. A low and eager conversation was kept up among them, 
while the great commander sat alone in thonghtfal attitude, his fine, calm, 
open countenance serious in its expression, but without any line or shadow 
upon it of weak anxiety or irresolution. Presently a courier dashes up, 
and delivers a paper to Gen, Lee. As the commander mounts his horse it is 
understood that Jackson is at hand, and that the time for action has come. 

Battle of Gaines' Mills. 

Pressing on towards the York Piver railroad. A, P. Hill, who was in 
advance, reached the vicinity of New Cold Harbour about two o'clock, 
where he encountered the enemy. He soon became hotly engaged. The 
arrival of Jackson on our left was momentarily expected, and it was sup- 
posed that his ap])roach would cause the extension of the enemy's line in 
that direction. Under this impression, Longstreet w\ns held back until this 
movement should commence. The principal part of the Federal army 
was now on the north side of the Chickahominy. Hill's single division 
met this lai-ge force with impetuous courage. They drove the enemy back 
and assailed him in his strong position on the ridge. The battle raged 
fiercely, and with varying fortune, more than two hours. Three regiments 



BAT1X.E OF QAIKES' MILLS. ' 287 

pierced the enemy's line, and forced their way to the crest of the hill on his 
left, but were compelled to full back before overwhelming numbers. The 
superior force of the enemy, assisted by the fire of his batteries, south of 
the Chickahominy, w^hich played incessantly on our columns as they 
pressed through the difficulties that obstructed their way, caused them to 
recoil. Though most of the men had never been under tire until the day 
before, they were rallied, and in turn, repelled the advance of the enemy. 
Some brigades were broken, others stubbornly maintained their positions, 
but it became apparent that the enemy was gradually gaining ground. 

Jackson had not yet arrived. It was a critical time. An urgent 
message was sent by Gen. Lee to Longstreetto make a diversion in favour 
of the attacking columns. The three brigades under Wilcox were at once 
ordered forward against the enemy's left flank with this viisw. Pickett's 
brigade making a diversion on the left of these brigades, developed the strong 
position and force of the enemy in Gen. Longstreet's front ; and the latter 
found that he must drive him by direct assault, or abandon the idea of 
making the diversion. He at once determined to change the feint into an 
attack, and orders for a general advance were issued. Gen. R. H. Ander- 
son's brigade was divided — part supporting Pickett's in the direct assault, 
and the other portions guarding the right flank of the brigades under 
Wilcox. 

At this moment Jackson arrived ; and the air was now rent with shouts 
as the combined commands prepared for the final charge of the day. 
Jackson's right division, that of Whiting, took position on the left of Long- 
street. The opportune arrival of this division occupied the entire field. 
The gallant command of Confederates was now moved forward in the face 
of tliz-ee lines of infantry fire, supported by batteries from both sides of the 
Chickahominy. 

AVith tierce grandeur the charge swept on. On the right the troops 
pressed steadily forward, unchecked by the terrible fire from the triple lines 
of infantry on the hill, and the cannon on both sides of the river, which 
burst upon them as they emerged on the plain. The thousand continuous 
volleys of musketry seemed mingled into the grand roar of a great cata- 
ract, while the louder and deeper discharges of artillery bounded forth 
over the hills and down the valley, with a volume that seemed to shake 
the earth. The canopy of smoke was so thick that the sun was gloomily 
red in the heavens, while the clouds of dust in the rear, caused by the 
commotion of advancing and retreating squadrons of cavalry, was stifling 
and blinding. The dead and wounded marked the way of the intrej)id 
advance ; AVhiting's brave Tcxans leading, closely followed by their no 
less daring comrades. The enemy were driven from the ravine to the fii'st 
line of breastworks, over which our impetuous columns dashed up to the 
entrenchments on the crest. These were quickly stormed, fourteen pieces 



288 THE LOST CAUSE. 

of artillery captured, and the enemy driven into the field beyond. Fresh 
troops came to his support, and he endeavouixid repeatedly to rally, but in 
vain. He was forced back with great slaugliter. The retreating columns 
soon became mingled into one black mass of troops. Night put an end to 
pursuit, and fell upon the scene of a great Confederate victory. Long lines 
of dead and wounded marked each stand made by the enemy in his stub- 
born resistance, and the field over which he retreated was strewn with the 
slain.* 

On the morning of the 28th, it was ascertained that none of the enemy 
remained in our front north of the Chickahominy. As he might yet intend 
to give battle to preserve his communications, some cavalry, supported by 
Ewell's division, was ordered to seize the York River Railroad, and Gen. 
Stuart, with his main body, to cooperate. When the cavalry reached 
Dispatch Station, the enemy retreated to the south bank of the river, and 
burned the railroad bridge. Ewell, coming np shortly afterwards, de- 
stroyed a portion of the track. During the forenoon, columns of dust, 
south of the Chickahominy, showed that the Federal army was in motion. 
The abandonment of the railroad, and destruction of the bridge, proved 
that no further attempt would be made to hold that line. But ti*om the 
position it occupied, the roads which led towards James River, would also 
enable it to reach the lower bridges over the Chickahominy, and retreat 
down the Peninsula. In the latter event, it was necessary that our troops 
should continue on the north bank of the river, and until the intention oi 
Gen. McClellan was discovered, it was deemed injudicious to change their 
disposition. 

* A Texan soldier writes of this charge : " A splendid battery of thirteen guns, manned by regu- 
lars, was just beyond, belching forth destruction, and it seemed almost like certain death to venture 
upon the brow of the hill ; but these were Texans. The most extraordinary fact about it was, that 
this terrible battle was being fought without any directions from officers on our side. We had lost 
all our field officers before we got to the first battery — the lieutenant-colonel mortally wounded, since 
dead ; the major badly wounded, since dead ; and many of the line officers killed or wounded. 
When I got to the top of that hill, I was almost completely exhausted, but as I got a breath, there I 
was, able and ready to go on when the word was given. The men had been firing from the brow 
of the hill, and had shot down many of the artillerymen, and so many of their horses that they could 
not get their guns away. They stood to their guns well, only running Avhen they could do nothing 
else. We pushed forward, and placed our colours upon the battery, but as the enemy were still firing 
upon us, we commenced firing in return. Pretty soon a strong force Opened fire upon our left, and 
changing our front in that direction, we poured in a heavy fire, which soon brought them to taw, as 
the greater part of two regiments threw down their arms, and ran to us, bringing their colours. Hav- 
ing delivered them over to another brigade, we pressed on in front, and drove the last Yankee from 
the field. As night was coming on, we were halted, and drawn up in line of battle. It was, indeed, 
a sad sight to look at the old regiment, a mere squad of noble men, gathered around their tattered 
colours. I could not realize that this little band of fifty or sixty men was the Fourth Texas. But it 
was even so. Out of five hundred and thirty men who went into the fight, there were two hundred 
and fifty-six killed, wounded, or missing : while many were completely broken down, and nearly 
every one was struck or grazed. We staid here all night without mterruption, being heavily rein 
forced during the nisht." 



BATTLE OF SAVAGE STATION. 28& 

During the afternoon and niglit of the 28th, the signs of a general 
movement were apparent, and no indications of his approach to the lower 
bridges of the Chiekahominy having been discovered by the pickets in ob- 
servation at those points, it became manifest that Gen. McClellan was 
retreatiiig to the James Kiver. 

It had been the part of Magruder and linger to watch the enemy, and 
to cnt oft' or press his retreat. The battle of Gaines' Mills had forced 
McClellan from his original strongholds on the north side of the Chieka- 
hominy, and, with his communications cut ofi" on the Pamunkey lliver, 
and encountered by the force on the south side of the Chiekahominy, it 
was supposed that he would be unable to extricate himself from his posi- 
tion without a capitulation. But the enemy had been imperfectly watched 
at a conjuncture the most critical of the contest ; a great and almost irre- 
parable crrour had been committed ; and McClellan had succeeded in 
massing his entire force, and taking up a line of retreat by which he hoped 
to reach the cover of his gunboats on the James. 

Early in the morning of the 29th, the pickets at Magruder's and IIu- 
ger's front were attacked in force, but instead of giving ground, drove the 
enemy down the roads and through the woods, into and past their breast- 
works, and found them deserted. Far from profiting by this discovery, 
and commencing the pursuit, these Generals allowed the foe to pass across 
their front, instead of piercing his line of retreat by advancing down the 
Nine Mile road, the railroad, and the Williamsburg road, which would 
have cut these forces of the enemy into so many fragments. 

The works abandoned by McClellan consisted of long lines of casemated 
batteries, and were found to be formidable and elaborate. An immense 
destruction of stores had been accomplished here. The neighboring fields 
and woods were covered with every description of clothing and camp 
equipage. There was every indication that the enemy had left his encamp- 
ment in haste and disorder. In one place there were four tiers of barrels, 
fifty yards square, in a blaze, scores of barrels being all strewn around, 
which had contained ground coffee, sugar, rice, molasses, salt, tea, crackers, 
flour meal, etc., the heads of the barrels being broken and their contents 
strewn on the ground. 

Battle of Savage Station. 

Early on the 29th, Longstreet and A. P. Hill were ordered to recross 
the Chiekahominy at New Bridge, and move by the Darbytown to tbe 
Long Bridge road. As soon as the retreat of the enemy was discovered. 
Gens. linger and Magruder were ordered in pursuit, the former by the 
Charles City road, so as to take the Federal army in flank, and the latter 
by the Williamsburg road, to attack its rear. Jackson was directed to cross 
at Grapevine Bridge and move down the south side of the Chiekahominy. 
19 



290 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Magruder reached the vicinity of Savage Station about noon, where he 
came npon the rear guard of the retreating army. 

McClellan's advance cohimn had ah-eady been swallowed in the maw 
of the dreary forest. It swept onward fast and furious. Pioneer bands 
rushed along in front, clearing and repairing the single road ; rcconnois* 
sance officers were seeking new routes for a haven of rest and safety. Tlic 
Confederates were in the rear, pressing on with fearful power ; and there 
was yet an expectation that Jackson's flank movement might cut oif the 
retreat. Moments seemed hours. Back and forth dashed hot riders. 
Caravans of wagons, artillery, horsemen, soldiers, camp-followers, pressed 
through the narrow road, and at intervals swept onward like an avalanche 
The trace of agony was on the face of the commander, and the soldiers 
who carried muskets in their hands could perceive it. Presently the dull 
boom of a cannon and. its echoing shell fell grimly upon the ear, and an 
ominous roar behind told the enemy that his rear was attacked. 

Magruder had struck the enemy's rear ; but Jackson had been delayed. 
The first, under the false impression that the enemy was advancing upon 
him, sent for reinforcements. Two brigades of Huger's division were or- 
dered to his support, but subsequently withdrawn, it being apparent that 
the force in Magruder's front was covering the retreat of the main body. 
Jackson's route led to the flank and rear of Savage Station, but he was de- 
layed by the necessity of reconstructing Grapevine Bridge. Late in the 
afternoon Magruder attacked the enemy with one of his divisions and two 
regiments of another. A severe action ensued, and was terminated by 
night. Owing to the lateness of the hour and the small force employed, 
the result was not decisive, and the enemy continued his retreat, under 
cover of darkness, leaving several hundred prisoners, with his dead and 
wounded, in our hands. The time gained in Magruder's action enabled 
the retreating column to cross White Oak Swamp without interruption, 
and destroy the bridge. 

Jackson reached Savage Station early on the 30th. He was directed 
to pursue the enemy on the road he had taken, and Magruder to follow 
Longstreet by the Darbytown road. As Jackson advanced, his progress 
was arrested at AYhite Oak Swamp. The enemy occupied the opposite 
side, and obstinately resisted the reconstruction of the bridge. Longstreet 
and A. P. Hill, continuing their advance on the 30th, soon came upon the 
enemy, strongly posted across the Long Bridge road, about a mile from its 
intersection with the Charles City road, Huger's route led to the right of 
the position, Jackson's to the rear, and the arrival of their commands was 
awaited, to begin the attack. On the 29th, Gen. Holmes had crossed from 
the south side of the James, with part of his division. On the 30th, reinforced 
by Gen, Wise with a detachment of his brigade, he moved down the river 
road, and came upon the line of the retreating army near Malvern Hill 



BArrLE OF FRAZIEr's FAEil. 291 

Perceiving indications of confusion, Gen. Holmes was ordered to open 
upon the column with artillery. He soon discovered that a number of bat- 
teries, advantageously posted, supported by an infantry force snperiour to 
his own, and assisted by the fire of the gunboats in James Kiver, guarded 
this part of the line. Magruder, who had reached the Darbytown road, 
was ordered to reinforce Holmes, but, being at a greater distance than had 
been supposed, he did not reach the position of the latter in time for an 
attack. Huger reported that his progress was obstructed ; but about 4 
p. M., firing was heard in the direction of the Charles City road, which was 
supposed to indicate his approach. Longstreet immediately opened with 
one of his batteries, to give notice of his presence. This brought on the 
engagement ; but Huger not coming up, and Jackson having been unable 
to force the passage of White Oak Swamp, Longstreet and Hill were v.ith- 
out the expected support. 

Battle of Frazier's Farm: 

The superiourity of numbers and advantages of position were on the 
side of the enemy. He occupied the open high lands constituting " Fra- 
zier's Farm," five miles northeast of Darbytown. The place was good for 
defence ; the woods right and left of it swarmed with skirmishers ; the 
ascending grade of the road was swept by cannon, while all attempts to 
flank the enemy's left would meet with broadsides from the gunboats at 
Curl's Neck, in the James River, two and a half miles distant. 

The Confederates pressed forward under an incessant storm of lead ; 
sixteen pieces of artillery belching forth shell, canister, and grape upon 
them, while tlipy had but one battery on their side, -which could not be 
got into position. The battle raged furiously until nine o'clock in the night. 
By that time, the enemy had been driven ^v^ith great slaughter from every 
position but one, which he maintained until he was able to withdraw 
under cover of darkness. At the close of the struggle nearly the entire 
field remained in our possession, covered with the enemy's dead and 
wounded. 

After the engagement, Magruder was recalled, to relieve the troops of 
Longstreet and Hill. The command of the latter was, indeed, prostrated 
by almost superhuman exertions. It had won the battle of Mechanics- 
viUe, fought five hours at Gaines' Mills, marched over a terrible road and 
circuitous route of forty miles, and had now borne the chief part in another 
of the series of engagements that had tracked the lines of Richmond with 
fire and destruction. 

Battle of Malvern Hill, 
Early on the 1st of July, Jackson reached the battle-field of the pre- 
vious day, having succeeded in crossing White Oak Swamp, where he 



292 THE LOST CAUSE. 

captured a part of the enemy's artillery and a number of prisoners. He 
was directed to continue the pursuit down the Willis CJiurch road, and 
soon found the enemy occupying a high range, extending obliquely across 
the road, in front of Malvern Hill. On this position, of great natural 
strength, he had concentrated his powerful artillery, supported by masses 
of infantry, partially protected by earthworks. Immediately in his front 
the ground was open, varying in width from a quarter to half a mile, and 
sloping gradually from the crest, was completely swept by the fire of his 
infantry and artillery. To reach this open ground, our troops had to 
advance through a broken and thickly-wooded country, traversed, nearly 
throughout its whole extent, by a swamp passable at but few places, and 
difficult at those. The whole of it was within range of the batteries on the 
heights, and the gnnboats in the river, under whose incessant fire onr 
movements had to be executed, Jackson formed his line with "Whiting's 
division on his left, and D. H. Hill's on the right, one of Swell's brigades 
occupying the interval. The rest of Swell's, and Jackson's OM'n division 
were held in reserve. Magruder was directed to take position on Jack- 
son's right, but before his arrival two of Huger's brigades came up and 
were placed next to Hill. Magruder subsequently formed on the right of 
these brigades, which, with a third of Huger's, were placed under his 
command. Longstreet and A. P. Hill were held in reserve, and took no 
part in the engagement. 

The position taken by McClellan enabled him to turn at bay, with his 
rear protected by the James, and flanks partially covered by gunboats. 
From the magnificent bluff might be seen the Federal gunboats cruising in 
the river. The hill was crowned with numerous artillery. Owing to the 
obstacles presented by the woods and swamp, the Confederates had been 
unable to bring up sufficient artillery to oppose successfully the extraordi- 
nary force of that arm employed by the enemy. 

The Confederate line of attack was not formed until a late hour in the 
afternoon. A general advance was to be made at a given signal. On the 
left, D. H. Hill pressed forward across the open field, and engaged the 
enemy gallantly, breaking and driving back his first line ; but a simultane- 
ous advance of the other troops not taking place, he found himself unable 
to maintain the ground he had gained against the overwhelming numbers 
and numerous batteries of the enemy. Jackson sent to his support hia 
own division and that part of Ewell's which was in resei*\'e, but owing to 
the increasing darkness and intricacy of the forest and swamp, they did 
not arrive in time to render the desired assistance. Hill was therefore 
compelled to abandon part of the ground he had gained, after sufiering 
severe loss. 

On the right, a more terrible and dramatic action was to occur. It waa 
past four o'clock, and if anything was to be attempted, the work must bo 



BATTLE OF MALVERN HILL. 293 

quick and desperate. An order had been dispatched by Gen. Magnider to 
biing "Uf from all the batteries thirty rifle pieces, if possible, with which he 
hoped to shatter the enemy's infantry. It was soon evident that the artil- 
lery could not get up in time. Magruder determined to trust to the im 
petuous valour of his troops, and with fifteen thousand infantry to storm 
the hill at Crew's house. There was a run of more than six hundred yards 
up a rising ground, an unbroken flat beyond of several hundred yards, ono 
hundred pieces of cannon behind breastworks, and heavy masses of infan- 
try in support ! The brigades advanced bravely across the open field, 
raked by the fire of the cannon, and the musketry of large bodies of infan- 
try. Some were broken and gave way ; others approached close to the 
guns, driving back the infantry, compelling the advanced batteries to retire 
to escape capture, and mingling their dead with those of the enemy. To 
add to the horrors of the scene, and the immense slaughter in front of the 
batteries, the gunboats increased the rapidity of their broadsides, and the 
immense missiles coursed through the air w^th great noise, tearing oft' the 
tree-tops, and bursting with loud explosions. 

Towards sunset the concussion of artillery was terrific ; the hill was 
clothed in sheets of flame ; shells raced athwart the horizon ; tlie blaze of 
the setting sun could scarcely be discovered through the canoj^y of smoke 
which floated from tlie surface of the plains and rivers. Piles of dead lay 
thick close to the enemy's batteries, and the baleful fires of death yet 
blazed among the trees, where our shattered columns had sought an im- 
perfect cover behind the slight curtain of tlie forest. 

It was now dark, and little could be done. The attack on Malvern 
Hill had failed for want of concert among the attacking columns. The 
assaults of the Confederates were too weak to break the Federal line, and, 
after struggling gallantly, sustaining and inflicting great loss, they were 
compelled successively to retire. 

But the action of Malvern Hill was to be the last important incident 
of the drama of Richmond, and another day was to complete and reveal to 
the world McClellan's grand catastrophe. As night fell, the enemy silently 
retreated from Malvern Hill, In tlie morning of the 2d July it was dis- 
covered that McClellan had again retired, and was in full retreat, and Lee 
instantly recommenced the advance, although it rained in floods. But the 
Federals seemed to have vanished once more in the densely-timbered 
Bwamp. The outposts saw no signs of them, and most of the day was lost 
before it was ascertained whither McClellan had fled. Towards night it 
was discovered he had conducted his whole force by a narrow road tlirough 
a tliick swampy wood, several miles in extent, and was safe under his gun- 
boats at Harrison's Landing, 

McClellan had managed his retreat with skill. He had at last obtained 
a position on the river, our advance to which could be made but by one 



394 THE LOST CAUSE. 

road, and that narrow, and swept with numerous artillery. He immedi- 
ate! v began to fortify his position, which was flanked on each side by a 
creek, the approach to his front being commanded by the heavy guns of his 
shipping in addition to those mounted in his entrenchments. He had 
reached at last a safe cover for his shattered columns ; but after a series 
of defeats that had demoralized his command, inflicted upon him a loss of 
not less than twenty thousand in killed and wounded, and was fatal to his 
designs upon Richmond. The immediate fruits of the Confederate success 
were the relief of Richmond from a state of siege ; the roat of the great 
army which had so long menaced its safety ; more than ten thousand pris- 
oners, including officers of high rank ; the capture or destruction of stores 
of the value of millions, and the acquisition of thirty-five thousand stand 
of small arms, and fifty-two pieces of superiour artillery. 

It is true that this success, great as it was, fell below public expectation 
in Richmond, which had looked for the capitulation or annihilation of 
McCIellan's entire forces, after they had been driven from the north side 
of the Chickahominy. Of this disappointment. Gen. Lee writes : " Under 
ordinary circumstances, the Federal army should have been destroyed. Its 
escape was due to causes already stated. Prominent among these was the 
want of correct and timely information. This fact, attributable chiefly to 
the character of the country, enabled Gen. McClellan skillfully to conceal 
liis retreat, and to add much to the obstructions with which nature had 
beset the way of our pursuing columns. But regret that more was not 
accomplished, gives way to gratitude to the Sovereign Ruler of the Uni- 
verse for the results achieved." 

The ex]iression of pious thanks was fervently repeated by Jackson. He 
wrote, in his official report : " Undying gratitude is due to God for this 
great victory — by which despondency increased in the ISTorth, hope bright- 
ened in the South, and the capital of Virginia and of the Confederacy was 
saved." 

It was indeed a glorious success. A week before, and an invading 
army, superiour to the Confederates in numbers, and in tlie material of 
war, closely beleaguered their capital, and vauntingly proclaimed its speedy 
conquest. Now the remains of that confident and threatening host lay on 
the banks of James River, anxious only to recruit from the ettects of disas- 
trous defeats ; and Richmond, erect and exultant, was secure in the protec- 
tion of an army whose fresh victory had been obtained over a force that 
liad had every resource that could be summoned to its assistance, every 
possible addition of numbers within the reach of the Federal Govei-nment, 
and every material condition of success to insure for it the great prize of 
the capital of the Confederacy. 



CIIAPTEE XVIII. 

EIFKOT l/P m'oLELLAN's DEFEAT IN THE NORTH. — ORGANIZATION' OF ANOTHEB FEDERAL ARMT 
rNDEB GEN. POPE. — POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF POPE's APPOINTMENT, — NEW MEASURES 
OF VIOLENCE IN THE WAR. — m'CLELLAn's IDEAS OF THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. — HIS 

" IIARRISON-BAR LETTER." DIVISIONS OF SENTIMENT IN THE NORTH AS TO THE CHAE 

ACTER AND MEASURES OF THE WAR. POSITION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. THE RADI 

CALS IN CONGRESS. THEIR ANTI-SLAVERY DESIGN. THEIR THEORY OF REVENGE UPON 

THE SOUTH. — CARDINAL ERROUR OF THIS POLITICAL SCHOOL. — DECLARATION OF WENDELL 

PHILLIPS. — SYSTEM K)F SPOLIATION AND DISFRANCHISEMENT IN THE SOUTH. GEN. POPE's 

ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY IN VIRGINIA. — HIS WAR UPON NON-COMBATANTS. — LEGALIZATION 
OF PLUNDER. — IRRUPTION OF THE NOBTHEEN SPOILSMEN INTO VIEGINIA. — POPE's MILI- 

TABY LINES. — GEN. LEE BETWEEN TWO FOBCES. HE SENDS JACKSON AGAINST POPE. — HE 

THREATENS m'cLELLAN's COMMUNICATIONS. BATTLE OF CEDAR RUN. — BANKS AGAIN DE- 
CEIVED BY JACKSON. — A RAPID AND 8EVEEE ENGAGEMENT. GEN. LEE MOVES OUT TO THE 

LINES OF THE RAPPAHANNOCK. ADVENTUBOUS MOVEMENT OF JACKSON TO REACH POPE'S 

REAR.-— HIS PERILOUS POSITION. HE IS APPARENTLY IN THE JAWS OF DESTRUCTION. 

THE AFFAIB OF MANASSAS AND BRISTOE STATION. THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 

LONGSTBEEt's MAECH TO EEINFORCE JACKSON. — HIS PASSAGE OF THOROUGHFARE GAP. — 
HIS TIMELY AND CRITICAL ARBIVAL ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE. — A CLOSE CONTEST. — 

FIGHTING AT TEN PACES. THE BATTLE OF THE FIRST DAY NOT DECISIVE. — DISPOSITION 

OF THE TWO ARMIES FOB THE GREAT CONTEST OF THE SECOND DAY. JACKSON AT CLOSE 

QUARTERS. HE DRIVES THE ENEMY. THE WHOLE CONFEDERATE LINE OF BATTLE AD- 
VANCING. A SUBLIME SPECTACLE. — SCENES ON THE BANKS OF BULL RUN. POPE ES- 
TREATS TO CENTREVILLE AND THENCE TOWARDS WASHINGTON. — JACKSON STRIKES HIM 

AGAIN. ENGAGEMENT AT OX HILL. POPE's IMMENSE LOSSES. — HIS ABSURD CLAIM OF 

VICTORY. LUDICBOUS COBBESPONDENCE BETWEEN POPE AND HALLECK. — BAPID AND 

BRILLIANT CHANGE IN THE FORTUNES OF THE CONFEDERACY. — THE WAR TRANSFERRED 

FROM THE INTEEIOUR TO THE FRONTIER. ALARM IN THE NORTH. POPULARITY IN THE 

CONFEDERACY OF AN OFFENSIVE WAR. A TRUE STATEMENT OF GEN. LEE's DESIGNS IN 

CROSSING THE UPPER POTOMAC AND INVADING MARYLAND. — WHY HE DID NOT MOVE 
UPON WASHINGTON AND ALEXANDRIA. HIS PROCLAMATION AT FREDERICK. WEAK RE- 
SPONSE OF THE MARYLANDERS. — EXPLANATION OF THIS. CAPTURE OFHAEPEr's FERRY, &0. 

HOW JACKSON INVESTED IT. m'cLELLAN AT THE HEAD OF THE FEDERAL ARMY. HIS 

INACTIVITY. — HE BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH LEE's PLANS BY A CURIOUS ACCIDENT. — HB 

PRESSES FORWARD TO RELIEVE HABPER's FERRY. FIGHT IN BOONESBORO' GAP. — GKN. LEB 

IffiTlRES TO SHARPSBUBG. MEANWHILE JACKSON COMPLETES THE BEDUCTION OF HABPEb's 

FEBET. — BATTLE OF SHARPSBUBG. — COMPAEATIVE STRENGTH OF THE TWO ABMIES. — FLUC- 



296 THE LOST CAUSE. 

TUATIOU OF THE TIDE OF BATTLE OX THE CON^FEDEEATE LEFT. — REPULSE OF THE KNEMr. 
— THE CONFEDEKATE CENTRE 13 BEOKEX AND RECOVERS. — THE ENEMY GETS P0SSE8SI0H 
OF THE BRIDGE OVER THE ANTIETAM. — THE DAT CLOSES WITH THE ENEMY REPULSED A1 
ALL POINTS, AND A VICTORY FOR THE CONFEDERATES. — WHY GEN. LEE DID NOT RENEW 

THE BATTLE THE NEXT DAY. — WHY HE RETREATED. m'CLELLAn's CLAIM OF VICTORY. 

now IT WAS AN AFTERTHOUGHT. LEE's ARMY RECRUITING IN VIRGINIA. 

The news of tlie retreat of the great Federal army under the command 
of McClellan from before Richmond to the James River, caused great 
excitement throughout the North. The details of the repulse fell upon the 
(x)mmimity with disheartening effect, and produced such a shock as had 
not been felt since the commencement of the war. A fierce clamour was 
raised against the unfortunate commander ; and the occasion of the organi- 
zation and direction of another Federal army against Richmond under 
JVIaj.-Gen. Pope, who had actually crossed the Rappahannock, as if to seize 
Gordonsville, and move thence upon the Confederate capital, was busily 
used to throw McClellan into the shade, to disparage his career, and to 
break down whatever public confidence might yet be disposed to linger in 
his name. Divisions and recriminations between these two grand wings of 
the Federal forces in Virginia were early developed. Several of McClel- 
lan's generals of division asked relief from duty under him, regarding him 
as inefiicient and incompetent, and had been assigned to Pope's army. 
The friends of McClellan were not slow to retaliate that Pope w^as an up- 
start and braggart, who by trickery and partisan politics, had become chief 
favoui'ite of the "Washington Cabinet, and a military impostor, convenient 
only as a tool in the hands of the Radical party, who mistook brutality in 
the war for vigour, and were for increasing the horrours of hostilities by 
emancipating and arming the slaves, legalizing plunder, and making the 
invaded country of the South the prey of white brigands and "loyal" 
negroes. 

The aj)pointraent of this man to the command of the Federal forces 
gathered on the Rappahannock was significant of the design of the Wasli- 
ino;ton Administration to introduce new measures of violence in the con- 
test, and to re-enter upon the campaign in Virginia with a new trial of 
warfare. The desperate fortunes of the war were now to be prosecuted 
with a remarkable exasperation. Pope was a violent Abolitionist, a furious 
politician ; his campaigns in the West had been remarkable only for the 
bluster of ofiicial despatches, big falsehoods in big print, and a memorable 
career of cruelty in Southeastern Missouri. He had suddenly risen into 
favour at Washington. McDowell, a moderate Democrat, having no sym- 
pathy with the Anti-Slavery school of politics — who some months before 
had been stationed at Fredericksburg, and was promised chief command 
of the movement thence upon Richmond when joined by Banks, Shields, 
and Fremont, but whose hopes had been destroyed by the rapid marches 



THE " HARRISON-BAR LETTER." 297 

uAd victories of " Stonewall " Jackson — was humiliated to find his plana 
and chief command entrusted to an incompetent man, and himself put in 
an obscure and subordinate position under Pope, 

Whatever question there may have been of the military capacity of 
McClellan, it is certain that there were political reasons at Washington for 
putting him out of the way. He was a Democrat ; his constant interpre- 
tation of the war had been that it was a contest for the restoration of the 
Union, not a war of vengeance, and should not be diverted or degraded 
from what h: esteemed a noble and laudable object, by revengeful designs 
upon the population of the South and a recourse to savage outrage. He 
had already obtained certain respect from the people of the South by a 
studious regard for the rights of private property within the lines of his 
military command, and his honourable disposition to direct war and deal 
its penalties against bodies of armed men rather than against the general 
population of the country without regard to age, sex, and other conditions, 
appealing to humanity and protected under the civilized code of Avar. The 
distressed commander, under the weight of a great defeat, yet had power 
of mind to write, a few days after his retreat to James River, a letter to 
President Lincoln, at Washington, which, apart from his military career, 
must ever remain a monument of honour to his name. The text of this 
letter deserves to be carefully studied as the exposition of the doctrines of 
a party in the North, that was for limiting the objects of the war to its 
original declarations, and conducting it on humane and honourable 
principles : 

" HEADaUABTEHS AhMT OF THE POTOMAC, 

"Camp near Harrison's Landing, Va., July 7, 1862. 

• " Me. President : You have been fully informed that the rebel army is in the front, 
with the purpose of overwhelming us by attacking our positions or reducing us by block- 
ing our river communications. I cannot but regard our condition as critical, and I ear- 
nestly desire, in view of possible contingencies, to lay before your excellency, for your 
private consideration, my general views concerning the existing state of the rebellion, 
although they do not strictly relate to the situation of this army, or strictly come within 
the scope of my official duties. These views amount to convictions, and are deeply im- 
pressed upon my mind and heart. Our cause must never be abandoned ; it is the cause 
of free institutions and self-government. The Constitution and the Union must be pre- 
served, whatever may be the cost in time, treasure, and blood. If secession is successful, 
other dissolutions are clearly to be seen in the future. Let neither military disaster, polit- 
ical faction, nor foreign war, shake your settled purpose to enforce the equal operation 
of the laws of the United States upon the people of every State. 

" The time has come when the Government must determine upon a civil and military 
policy, covering tlie whole ground of our national trouble. 

" The responsibility of determining, declaring, and supporting such civil and military 
policy, and of directing the whole course of national affairs in regard to the rebell.on, 
must now be assumed and exercised by you, or our cause will be lost. The Constitution 
gives you power, even for the present terrible exigency. 



298 THE LOST CAUSE. 

" This rebellion has assumed the character of a war ; as such it should be regarded, 
and it should be conducted upon the highest principles known to Christian civilization. 
It should not be a war looking to the subjugation of the people of any State, in any event. 
It should not be at all a war upon population, but against armed forces and political or- 
ganizations. Neither confiscation of property, political executions of persons, territorial 
organizations of States, or forcible abolition of slavery, should be contemplated for a 
moment. 

" In prosecuting the war, all private property and unarmed persons should be strictly 
protected, subject only to the necessity of military operations ; all private property taken 
for military use should be paid or receipted for ; pillage and waste should be treated as 
high crimes ; all unnecessary trespass sternly prohibited, and offensive demeanour by the 
military towards citizens promptly rebuked. Military arrests should not be tolerated, 
except in places where active hostilities exist ; and oaths, not required by enactments, 
constitutionally made, should be neither demanded nor received. 

" Militaiy government should be confined to the preservation of public order and the 
protection of political right. Military power should not be allowed to interfere with the 
relations of servitude, either by supporting or impairing the authority of the master, ex- 
cept for repressing disorders, as in other cases. Slaves, contraband under the act of Con- 
gress, seeking military protection, should receive it. The right of the Government to 
appropriate permanently to its own service slave labour should be asserted, and the 
right of tlie owner to compensation therefor should be recognized. This principle might 
be extended, upon grounds of military necessity and security, to all the slaves of a partic- 
ular State, thus working manumission in such State; and in Missouri, perhaps in "Western 
Virginia also, and possibly even in Maryland, the expediency of such a measure is only a 
question of time. A system of policy thus constitutional, and pervaded by the influences 
of Christianity and freedom, would receive the support of almost all truly loyal men, 
would deeply impress the rebel masses and all foreign nations, and it might be humbly 
hoped tliat it would commend itself to the favour of the Almighty. 

" Unless the principles governing the future conduct of our struggle shall be made 
known and approved, the etTort to obtain requisite foi-ces will be almost hopeless. A 
declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present 
armies. The policy of the Government must be supported by concentration of military 
power. The national forces should not be dispersed in expeditions, posts of occupation, 
and numerous armies, but should be mainly collected into masses, and brought to bear 
upon the armies of the Confederate States. Those armies thoroughly defeated, the polit- 
ical structure which they support would soon cease to exist. 

" In carrying out any system of policy which you may form, you will require a com- 
mander-in-chief of the army, one who possesses your confidence, understands your views, 
and who is competent to execute your orders, by directing the military forces of the na- 
tion to the accomplishment of the objects by you proposed. I do not ask that place for 
myself. I am willing to serve you in such position as you may assign me, and I will do 
so as faithfully as ever subordinate served superiour. 

" I may be on the brink of eternity ; and as I hope forgiveness from my Maker, I have 
written this letter with sincerity towards you and from love for my country. 
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" GEORGE B. McCLELLAN", 

'■'■ Major- General Commanding. 
" His Excellency A. LracoLN, PresidenV 

The letter of McClellan was significant of a remarkable division of sen. 



THE RADICAL PARTY IN THE NORTH. 299 

timent in the North on the conduct of tlie war. That division -was appa- 
rent in the Federal Congress, and n)arked by sharp lines of party conflict. 
The best portion of the Democi-atic party recognized the true proportions 
and character of the war ; were for according all belligerent rights to the 
Confederates ; and strenuously insisted that its objects should be limited 
to the restoration of the Union. They claimed that the war for the Union 
had been cheated of its due effect by the intrusion of sectional rancour and 
tlie injudicious or unfaithful acts of agents of the Government. They re- 
sisted the inauguration, now attempted at "Washington, of a system ol 
spoliation and disfranchisement in the invaded country of the South ; tbey 
declared that such a system would rob the cause of its sanctity, and render 
success more difficult of attainment. 

The Eadical party, on the otlier hand, which controlled a majority of 
votes in Congress, were for extending the contest to the extinction of 
slavery, and punishing the " rebels " with every conceivable means that 
the quick imagination of hate and revenge could suggest. They could not 
realize the fact that the contest had risen to the dignity of war. Their 
great mistake was that they habitually underrated the extent and strength 
of "• the rebellion," just as they had foi-merly underrated and contemned 
the grievances of the South and their hold on the Southern mind. They 
refused to apply even Vattel's test of a civil war, viz. : " tiiat a consider- 
able body of insurgents had risen against the sovereign ; " they repudiated 
all its appurtenances of a humane code of warfare, tlie exchange of prison- 
ers, etc. ; and the consequences of such a theory were constantly recurring 
difficulties about belligerent rights on sea and land, and inhumanities 
which would sicken the heart of a savage. In fact, this party cared noth- 
ing for the success of the war unless it could be used for purposes of re- 
venge upon the Soutliern people, and embrace a design upon their institu- 
tion of slavery. Wendell Phillips, a famous Radical orator in the North, 
had not hesitated to declare that he would deplore a victory of McClellan, 
because " the sore would be salved over," and it would only be the victory 
of a slave Union ; and that he thanked Beauregard for marshalling his 
army before Washington, because it had conferred upon Congress the 
constitutional power to abolish shivery. 

The appointment of John Pope to what was now the most important 
command in Virginia was a triumph of the Eadical party at Washington, 
and dated that system of spoliation and disfranchisement in the Southern 
States, now to be distinctly announced in forms of authority and in the 
^ext of official orders. Pope assumed his new command in the following 
address, which long amused the world as a curiosity in military literature 
and the braggart flourish of a man, whom the Pichmond Examiner de- 
Dcribed as " a compound of Bobadil and Munchausen : " 



300 THE LOST CAUSE. 

" To the Officers and Soldiers of the Army of Virginia : 

" By special assignment of the President of the United States, I have assumed con* 
inand of this army. I have spent two weeks in learning your whereabouts, your qondi« 
tion, and your wants; in preparing you for active operations, and in placing you in posi- 
tions from which you can act promptly and to the purpose. I have come to you from 
the "West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies — from an army whose 
business it has been to seek the adversary, and to beat him wlien found, whose policy 
has been attack and not defence. In but one instance has the enemy been able to place 
our Western armies in a defensive attitude. I presume that I have been called here to 
pursue the same system, and to lead you against the enemy. It is my purpose to do so, 
and that speedily. I am sure you long for an opportunity to win the distinction you are 
capable of achieving— that opportunity I shall endeavour to give you. Meantime I desire 
you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases which I am sorry to find much in vogue 
amongst you. I hear constantly of taking strong positions and holding them— of lines 
of retreat, and of bases of supplies. Let us discard such ideas. The strongest position 
a soldier should desire to occupy is one from whicli he can most easily advance against 
the enemy. Let us study the probable lines of retreat of our opponents, and leave our 
own to take care of themselves. Let us look before us and not behind. Success and 
glory are in the advance. Disaster and shame lurk in the rear. Let us act on this un- 
derstanding, and it is safe to predict that your banners shall be inscribed with many a 
glorious deed, and that your names will be dear to your countrymen forever. 

"JOHN POPE." 

He followed this cliaracteristic production with a series of general or- 
ders, making war upon the non-combatant population within his lines. 
He ordered the arrest of citizens, and on their refusing to take an " oath 
of allegiance," they were to be driven from their homes, and if thej re- 
turned anywhere within his lines they should be " considered spies, and 
subjected to the extreme rigour of military law ! " 

B}^ a general order of the Federal Government, the military command- 
ers of that Government, within the States of Virginia, SoutJi Carolina, 
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, 
were directed to seize and use any property, real or personal, belonging 
to the inhabitants of this Confederacy whicli migiit be necessary or con- 
venient for their several commands, and no provision was made for any 
compensation to the owners of private property thus seized and appropri- 
ated by the military commanders of the enemy. 

Pope went further than this authority, for he threw open all the coun- 
try he occupied or controlled to unlimited spoliation by his soldiers. They 
were given to understand that they were free to enter upon a campaign of 
robbery and murder against unarmed citizens and peaceful tillers of the 
soil. The country was ravaged as by a horde of barbarians. Houses were 
robbed ; cattle were shot dead in the fields ; clothing and jeweli-y were 
stolen ; and nothing was spared in this new irruption of the JSTorthern 
spoilsmen. A ISTorthern journal, more candid and honourable than its co- 
temporaries, referring to the depravity of Pope's troops in Virginia, said : 



MILITARY MOVEMENTS IN VIKGINIA. 301 

" The new usage which lias been instituted in regard to protection of rebel 
property, and the purpose of the Government to subsist the army as far aa 
practicable upon the enemy's country, has produced a decided revolution 
in the feelings and practices of the soldiery. Unless these innovations are 
guarded by far more stringent safeguards against irregular and unauthor- 
ized plundering, we shall have let loose upon the country, at the close of 
the war, a torrent of unbridled and unscrupulous rol)bers. Rapid strides 
towards villainy have been made during the last few Aveeks ; men, who at 
home would have shuddered at the suggestion of touching another's prop- 
erty, now appropriate remorselessly whatever comes within their reach. 
Thieving, they imagine, has now become an authorized practice." 

The military movements in Yirginia were now of surpassing interest. 
Pope was across the Rappahannock, with a strong advance guard south 
of Culpepper Court-House, and near Gordonsville. The enemy also ap- 
peared in force at Fredericksburg, and threatened the railroad from 
Gordonsville to Richmond, apparently for the purpose of co-operating with 
the movement of Pope. 

From early indications Gen. Lee was inclined to believe that McClellan 
would not again operate on the Peninsula, but had concluded to transport 
most of his forces to the Rappahannock, and form a junction with Pope. 
But it was necessary to be very careful in making any movement between 
the two forces, and to await, as far as possible, the full development of the 
enemy's designs. To meet the advance of Pope, and restrain, as far as 
possible, the atrocities which he threatened to perpetrate upon defenceless 
citizens. Gen. Jackson, witli his own and Ewell's division, was ordered to 
proceed towards Gordonsville, on the 13th of July. Upon reaching that 
vicinity, he ascertained that the force under Gen. Pope was superiour to 
his own, but the uncertainty that then surrounded the designs of McClel- 
lan, rendered it inexpedient to reinforce him from the army at Richmond. 
He was directed to observe the enemy's movements closely, and to avail 
himself of any opportunity to attack that might arise. 

McClellan, who was still at "Westover, on James River, continuing to 
manifest no intention of resuming active operations, and Gen. Pope's ad- 
vance having reached the Rapidan, Gen. A. P. Hill, with his division, 
was ordered, on the 27th of July, to join Gen. Jackson. At the same 
time, in order to keep McClellan stationary, or, if possible, to cause him to 
withdraw. Gen. D. H. Hill, commanding south of James River, was directed 
to threaten his communications, by seizing favourable positions below 
"Westover, from which to attack the transports in the river. That officer 
selected Coggin's Point, opposite Westover. On the night of the 31st of 
July, Gen. French, accompanied by Brig. -Gen. Pendleton, chief of artil- 
lery, placed forty-three guns in position within range of the enemy's ship- 
ping Id the river, and of the camps on the north side, upon both of wliich 



302 THE LOST CAUSE. 

fire was opened, causing consternation, and inflicting serious damage. 
The guns were withdrawn before daybreak, witli the loss of one killed and 
two wounded bj the gunboats and batteries of the enemy. This attack 
caused Gen. McClellan to send a strong force to the south bank of the river, 
which entrenched itself on Coggin's Point. 

While the main body of Gen. Lee's army awaited the development of 
McCIellan's intentions, Gen. Jackson, reinforced by A. P. Hill, determined 
to assume the offensive against Pope, whose army, still superiour in num- 
bers, lay north of the Rapidan. 

Only a portion of Gen. Pope's army was at Culpepper Court-House. 
The forces of Banks and Sigel, and one of the diYisions of McDowell's 
corps, had been concentrated there ; Banks' corps bjcing pushed forward 
five miles south of the town. Gen. Jackson, who was anxious to meet his 
old acquaintance of the Shenandoah Valley, resolved to attack this portion 
of the Federal army, before the arrival of the remainder ; and on the 7th 
August moved from Gordonsville for that purpose. 



BATTLE OF CEDAR RUN. 

On the 9th, Jackson's command arrived within eight miles of Culpepper 
Court-House, when the enemy was found near Cedar Pun, a short distance 
northwest of Slaughter's Mountain. Early's brigade, of E well's division, 
was thrown forward on the road to Culpepper Court-House. Tlie remain- 
ing two brigades, those of Trimble and Hays, diverging to the right, took 
position on the western slope of Slaughter's Mountain. Jackson's own 
division, under Brig.-Gen. Winder, was placed on the left of the road. 
The battle opened with a fierce tire of artillery, which continued for about 
two hours, during which Gen. Winder, while directing the movements of 
his batteries, was killed. 

It was now above five o'clock in the evening, and there had scarcely 
been any demonstration beyond that of artillery. Gen. Banks, about this 
time, sent word to Pope, who was at Culpepper Court-House, seven miles 
away from the field, that the enemy had made no considerable demonstra- 
tion upon him, and that he hardly expected a battle that afternoon. But 
the obtuse Federal commander, despite his lesson in the Shenandoah Yal- 
ley, was again to be deceived by his wily and vigorous adversary. Banks' 
com-ier had but just started, wlien an advance of the Federal infantry un- 
covered, what had been unknown to their commander, the flanking force 
of Confederates on the slopes of the mountain. The infantry fight soon 
extended to the left and centre. Early became warmly engaged with the 
enemy on his right and front. He had previously called for reinforce- 
ments. As Gen. Hill had arrived with his division, one of his brigades, 



"BATTLE OF CEPAK KUN. 303 

Gen. Thomas', was sent to Early, and joined him in time to render efficient 
service.' Whilst the attack upon Early was in progress, the main body of 
tlie Federal infantry moved down from the wood, through tlie corn and 
M-heat-fields, and fell with great vigour upon our extreme left, and, by the 
force of 6uj)eriour numbers, bearmg down all opposition, turned it, and 
poured a destructive lire into its rear. At this critical moment. Branch's 
brigade, of Hill's division, with Winder's brigade further to the left, met 
the Federal forces, flushed with their temporary triumph, and drove them 
back with terrible slaughter, through the woods. The fight was still 
maintained with obstinacy, between the enemy and the two brigades just 
named, when, reinforcements coming up, a general charge was made, 
which drove the enemy across the field into the opposite woods, strewing 
the narrow valley with his dead. At every point of their line the Fed- 
erals fell back. It had been one of the most rapid and severe engagements 
of the war. The attack of Banks had failed ; his centre and left were irre- 
parably broken ; and night alone saved him from the severe penalty of 
pursuit. 

The next day, Gen. Jackson remained in position, and, becoming satis- 
fied that Banks had been reinforced, proceeded to bury the dead, and col- 
lect the arms from the battle-field, and at night returned to the vicinity of 
Gordonsville. The official report of his loss was 223 killed and 1,060 
wounded. It was closely estimated that the enemy's loss was at least two 
thousand, including four hundred prisoners in our hands. 

Shortly after the victory at Cedar Run, it became apparent to Gen. Lee 
that Pope's army was being largely increased. The corps of Maj.-Gen. 
Burnside, from l^orth Carolina, which had reached Fredericksburg, was 
reported to have moved up the Kappahannock, a few days after the battle, 
to unite with Gen. Pope, and a part of Gen. McClellan's army was be- 
lieved to have left Westover for the same purpose. In this condition of 
afi'airs it was promptly decided by Gen. Lee, that the most eflectual way 
to relieve Richmond from any danger of attack, would be to reinforce 
Gen. Jackson, and advance upon Pope. On the 13th August, Maj.-Gen. 
Longstreet, with his division, and two brigades, under Gen. Hood, were 
ordered to proceed to Gordonsville. At the same time. Gen. Stuart was 
directed to move with the main body of his cavalry to that point, leaving 
a sufficient force to observe the enemy still remaining in Fredericksburg, 
and to guard the railroad. Gen. R. II. Anderson was also directed to 
leave his position on James River, and follow Longstreet. On the IGth, the 
troops began to move from the vicinity of Gordonsville towards the Rapi- 
dan, on the north side of which, extending along the Orange and Alex- 
andria Railroad, in the direction of Culpepper Court-llouse, the Federiil 
army lay in great force. 

It was intended that Longstreet and Jackson should cross the Rapidan, 



304 THE LOST CAUSE. 

aii.l attack the enemy's left flank ; but Pope taking the alarm.^ nastily re* 
treated beyond the Eappahannock. While Gen. Lee was making demon- 
strations at various points of the river, Jackson's forces, some twenty-live 
thousand strong, left the main body on the 25th August, and proceeded 
towards the head-waters of the Rappahannock. He was encumbered with 
no baggage, and moved with great rapidity. Crossing the river about 
four miles above Waterloo, he pushed rapidly towards Salem, and, turning 
the head of his column, proceeded eastward parallel with the Manassas 
9-ap Railroad, tmtil he reached the village of Gainesville. The design of 
*.his rapid and adventurous movement of Jackson was, to move around the 
enemy's right, so as to strike the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Long- 
street, in the mean time, was to divert his attention by threatening him in 
front, and follow Jackson as soon as the latter should be sufficiently 
advanced. 

On the 26th August, Gen. Jackson was between the large army of Pope 
and the Federal capital. It was a situation of extreme peril. He was in 
the rear of an enemy much more powerful than himself, far from all sup- 
ports, liable to be attacked by superiour numbers from Washington, on 
the one hand, and in danger of annihilation if Pope should face about and 
co-operate with a force moving in that direction. The enemy was being 
heavily reinforced. The corps of Heintzelman and Porter, probably twenty 
thousand strong, joined Pope on the 26th and 27th of August, at Warren- 
ton Junction. Another portion of McClellan's army, transported from 
Westover, consisting of the coi'ps of Pranklin and Sumner, were at Alex- 
andria, intending to reinforce Pope's lines ; making altogether an array 
of force and a situation in which the Federal Government had reason to 
expect a certain and splendid victory. It seemed indeed that Jackson had 
marched into the jaws of destruction, and had thrust into Pope's hands the 
opportunity of an easy and brilliant conquest. 

But Jackson's designs upon Pope's stores at Bristoe and Manassas 
Station as well as upon his communications with Washington, were an im- 
portant part of his expedition, were efiectively carried out, and were 
accomplished before Pope could realize tbat such a force was in his rear, 
and that the demonstration upon his depots of supplies was not a mere 
guerilla foray. The amount of stores captured by Jackson was large. At 
Manassas, eight pieces of artillery were taken, and more than three hun- 
dred prisoners. Here there was a vast accumulation of supplies : fifty 
thousand pounds of bacon, one thousand barrels of corn-beef, two thou- 
sand barrels of salt pork, two thousand barrels of flour, quartermasters' 
ordnance, and sutlers' stores, deposited in buildings, and filling two trains 
of cars. Having appropriated all that his army could use, Gen. Jackson 
ordered the remainder of these stores to be destroyed, to avoid recapture 
by the enemy. 



THE SECOND BATILE OF MANASSAS. 305 

On the 27th August, a considerable force of the enemy under Brig.- 
Gen. Tajlor, approached from the direction of Alexandria, and pushed 
forward boldly towards Manassas Junction. After a sharp engagement, 
the enemy was routed and driven back, leaving his killed and wounded on 
the field. Gen. Taylor himself being mortally wounded during the pursuit. 
In the afternoon, the enemy advanced upon Gen. Ewell at Bristoe, from 
the direction of Warrenton Junction. They were attacked by three regi- 
ments and the batteries of Ewell's division, and two columns, of not less 
than a brigade each, were broken and repulsed. Their places were soon 
supplied by fresh troops ; and it was ap^^arent the Federal commander had 
now become aware of the situation of affairs, and had turned ujdou Gen. 
Jackson with his whole force. Gen. Ewell, upon perceiving the strength 
of the enemy, withdrew his command, part of which was at the time en- 
gaged, and rejoined Gen. Jackson at Manassas Junction, having first de- 
stroyed the railroad bridge over Broad liun. The enemy halted at 
Bristoe. 

THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 

It being evident that the design of Pope was to fall upon Jackson, and 
annihilate him in his isolated position, that alert Confederate commander 
rapidly withdrew from Manassas, and took a position west of the turnpike 
road from "Warrenton to Alexandria, where he could more rapidly unite 
with the approaching column of Longstreet. 

Taliaferro's division moved, during the night, by the road to Sndley, 
and crossing the turnpike near Groveton, halted on the west side, where it 
was joined by the divisions of Hill and Ewell. Perceiving during the 
afternoon of the 28th, that the enemy, approaching from the direction of 
Warrenton, was moving down the turnpike towards Alexandria, thus ex- 
posing his left flank. Gen. Jackson advanced to attack him. A fierce and 
sanguinary conflict ensued, which continued until about nine o'clock in the 
nigiit, when the enemy slowly fell back, and left us in possession of the 
field. 

The next morning, the 29th, the enemy had taken a position to inter- 
pose his army between Gen. Jackson and Alexandria, and about ten 
o'clock, opened with artillery upon the right of Jackson's line. The troops 
of the latter were disposed in the rear of Groveton, along the line of the 
unfinished branch of the Manassas Gap Railroad, and extended from a 
point a short distance west of the turnpike towards Sudley Mill — Jackson's 
division, under Brig.-Gen. Starke, being on the right, Ewell's, under Gen. 
Lawton, in the centre, and A. P. Hill on the left. The Federal army was 
evidently concentrating upon Jackson, with the design of overwhelming 
him before the arrival of Longstreet. 
20 



306 THE LOST CAUSE. 

The latter officer was already approaching the critical field of battle on 
a rapid m-arch. The preceding day he had reached Thoroughfare Gap — 
a wild, rude opening through the Bull Run Mountains, varying in width 
from one hnndred to two hundred yards. The enemy held a strong posi- 
tion on the opposite gorge, and had succeeded in getting his shar|)sbooters 
in position on the mountain. Brig.-Gen. D. R. Jones advanced two of 
his brigades rapidly, and soon drove the enemy from his position on the 
mountain. Brig.-Gen. Hood, with his own and Gen. Whiting's brigade, 
was ordered, by a footpath over the mountain, to turn the enemy's right, 
and Brio-.-Gen. "Wilcox with his own and Bri£2;.-Gen. Feath erst one's and 
Pryor's brigades, was ordered through Hopewell Gap, three miles to our left, 
to turn the right and attack the enemy in rear. The movement was so suc- 
cessful that the enemy, after a brief resistance, retreated during the night. 

Early the next morning, Longstreet's columns were united, and the 
advance to join Gen. Jackson was resumed. The noise of battle was heard 
before Longstreet reached Gainesville. The march was quickened. The 
excitement of battle seemed to give new life and strength to his jaded 
men. On a rapid march he entered the turnpike near Gainesville, moving 
down towards Groveton, the head of his column coming upon the field in 
rear of the enemy's left, which had already opened with artillery upon 
Jackson's right, as previously described. Longstreet took position on the 
right of Jackson, Hood's two brigades, supported by Evans, being deployed 
across the turnpike, and at right angles to it. 

The timely appearance of Longstreet gave a new aspect to the field ; 
and the enemy, discovering his movements, showed a disposition to with- 
draw his left from the attack. He changed his front, so as to meet the 
advance of Hood and Evans. However, about two o'clock in the after- 
noon, another effort was directed against Jackson, this time against his 
left, occupied by the division of Gen. A. P. Hill. The attack was received 
by his 'troops with great steadiness. The enemy was repeatedly repulsed, 
but again pressed the attack with fresh troops. Once he succeeded in 
penetrating an interval between Gen. Gregg's brigade on the extreme left, 
and that of Gen. Thomas, but was quickly driven back with great slaugh- 
ter. The contest was close and obstinate, the combatants sometimes deliv- 
ering their fire at ten paces. At last Early's brigade was ordered up, and 
drove the enemy back with heavy loss. AVhile this action was taking 
place on Jackson's left. Gen. Longstreet ordered Hood and Evans to ad- 
vance, but before the order could be obeyed. Hood was himself attacked, 
and his command at once became warmly engaged. Reinforced by Wil- 
cox's and Kemper's brigades, Hood pressed forward ; and after a severe 
contest, the enemy was repulsed, fell back, and was closely followed by 
our troops, who continued to advance until about nine o'clock in the night, 
when the action ceased. 



THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 307 

The action of this day was not a general or decisive one. The enemy 
ap2)ears to liave had no settled plan of attack, and to have experimented 
on the strength of our lines. But whatever the significance of the action, 
success was plainly with the Confederates ; they had driven the enemy, 
advanced their positions, and were now prepared for a renewal of the en- 
ffaijeaient on the scene of the first e;reat battle of the war. 

The decisive contest was yet to take place ; although Pope, quick to 
boast, and unscrupulous in his official dispatches, had already telegraphed 
to Washington that he had won a great victory, and was master of the 
field. As the morning of the 30th broke, the Confederates were under 
arais ; the pickets of the two armies were within a few hundred yards of 
each other ; and cannonading along the lines betokened the approaching 
contest. The troops of Jackson and Longstreet maintained their positions 
of the previous day. Fitzhugh Lee, with three regiments of his cavalry, 
was posted on Jackson's left, and E.. II. Anderson's division, which arrived 
during the forenoon, was held in reserve near the turnpike. The line of 
battle stretched for a distance of about five miles from Sudley Springs on 
the left to tlie Warrenton road, and thence in an oblique direction towards 
the southwest. The disposition of the enemy's forces was, Gen. Ileintzel- 
man on the extreme right, and Gen. McDowell on the extreme left, while 
the army corps of Gen. Fitz-John Porter and Sigel, and Reno's division 
of Gen. Burnside's army, were placed in the centre. 

For a good part of the day, the action was fought principally with 
artillery. But about three o'clock in the afternoon, the enemy having 
massed his troops in front of Gen. Jackson, advanced against his position 
in strong force. His front line pushed forward until engaged at close 
quarters by Jackson's troops, when its progress was checked, and a fierce 
and bloody struggle ensued. A second and third line, of great strength, 
moved up to support the first, but in doing so, came within easy range of 
a position a little in advance of Longstreet's left. He immediately ordered 
up two batteries, and two others being thrown forward about the same 
time by Col. S. D. Lee, under their well-directed and destructive fire the 
supporting lines were broken, and fell back in confusion. Their repeated 
efibrts to rally were unavailing, and Jackson's troops being thus relieved 
from the pressure of overwhelming numbers, began to press steadily for- 
ward, driving the enemy before them. He retreated in confusion, suffer- 
ing severely from our artillery, which advanced as he retired. Gen. Long- 
street, anticipating the order for a general advance, now threw his whole 
command against the Federal centre and lett. Hood's two brigades, fol- 
lowed by Evans, led the attack. R. H. Anderson's division came gallantly 
to the support of Hood, while the three brigades under Wilcox moved for- 
ward on his left, and those of Kemper on his right. D. R. Jones advanced 
an the extreme right, and the whole line swept steadily on 



308 THE LOST CAUSE. 

The magnificent array s^vept tlie enemy "before tliem, pausing only tc 
drive tliem from each successive position. It was the most sublime spec- 
tacle that was ever witnessed on a battle-field. As far as the eye could 
range, a line of bayonets glittered in the sun. Now it could be observed 
passing through open fields. Again it would disappear in the woods. A 
brief pause would ensue, followed by the clatter of artillery riding to the 
front, and the awful roar of the guns. Then a shout would proclaim that the 
enemy was again in retreat, and the advance swept on, its bayonets catch- 
ing now and then the light of the sun, while sheets of artillery fire blazed 
through clouds of smoke and dust. The gromid which the men traversed 
was in many places red with blood. In wood and field, across creeks and 
brooks, the roar of battle continued, and long lines of smoke curling over 
tree-tops wafted away on the evening breeze. Lines of ambulances and 
stretchers followed the grand advance as it swept on in its deliberate work 
of destruction, leaving scenes of carnage in its rear. Groans and death- 
cries arose on every hand, mingling with the distant roar and rush of bat- 
tle. Still the advance was relentless. As the masses of fugitives were 
driven across Bull Run, many were literally dragged and crushed under 
the water, the crowds of frenzied men pressing and trampling upon each 
other in the stream. The wounded and dying of both armies Kned the 
banks. Some, in the endeavour to drink, had tumbled in, and from weak- 
ness unable to extricate themselves, had been drowned ; others in the 
water clung to branches, and thus sustained themselves for a little while, 
and then were seen to let go their hold and disappear. The meadows 
were trodden down, wet and bloody. Hundreds of bodies had been ridden 
over and crushed by artillery or cavalry. In front was the brilliant spec- 
tacle of a valourous army in steady, relentless pursuit : in the rear was the 
ground, torn, scarred, bloody, piled with heaps of dead and dying, as 
monuments of war's horrours. 

The pursuit continued until 10 p. m. The enemy escaped to the strong 
position of Centreville, about four miles beyond Bull Run, where his flight 
was arrested by the appearance of the corps of Franklin and Sumner, nine- 
teen thousand strong. The next day Gen. Jackson was directed to proceed 
by Sudley's Ford to the Little River turnpike, to turn the enemy's right, 
and intercept his retreat to Washington. Jackson's progress was retarded 
by the inclemency of the weather and the fatigue of his troops, who, in 
addition to their arduous marches, had fought three severe engagements 
in as many days. He reached Little River turnpike in the evening, and 
the next day, September 1st, advanced by that road towards Fairfax Court 
House. The enemy, in the meantime, was falling back rapidly towards 
Washington, and had thrown out a strong force to Germantown, on the 
Little River turnpike, to cover his line of retreat from Centreville. The 
advance of Jackson's column encountered the enemy at Ox Hill, near Ger- 



THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 309 

maiitown, about 5 p. m. Line of battle was at once formed, and two bri- 
gades of A. P. Plill's division, those of Branch and Field, were thrown 
forward to attack the enemy, and ascertain his strength and position. A 
cold and drenching rain-storm drove in the faces of our trooi:)S as they 
advanced and gallantly engaged the enemy. They were subsequently snp- 
jjorted by the brigades of Gregg, Thomas, and Pender ; also of Hill's 
division, which, with part of Evvell's, became engaged. The conflict was 
maintained by the enemy until dark, when he retreated, having lost two 
general officers, one of whom, Major-Gen. Kearney, was left dead on the 
field.* Longstreet's command arrived after the action was over, and the 
next morning it was found that the enemy had conducted his retreat so 
rapidly, that the attempt to intercept him was abandoned. The proximity 
of the fortifications around Alexandria and Washington rendered further 
pursuit useless ; and the Confederates rested near Chantilly, the enenij 
being followed only by the cavalry, who continued to harass him until he 
reached the shelter of his entrenchments. 

In the sei'ies of engagements on the plains of Manassas, more than 
seven thousand prisoners were taken, in addition to about two thousand 
wounded left in our hands. Thirty pieces of artillery, upwards of twenty 
thousand of small arms, numerous colours, and a large amount of stores, 
besides those taken by Gen, Jackson at Manassas Junction, were captured. 
Pope confessed to a loss of eight thousand killed and wounded in the bat- 
tle of the 29th ; and it may be safely concluded that in the series of 
engagements, his total loss was not less than twenty-five thousand. 

He had sustained a most decisive defeat. It was a dark hour for the 
Northern people. Elated by Pope's false dispatches from the field, they 
had been counting on a splendid victory, and few were prepared to hear 
of the retreat and total demoralization of the army in three days. Now 
the war was transferred from the g-ates of Richmond to those of Washing- 
ton. It was in vain that the Government in the latter city attempted to 
misrepresent the situation, and to support Pope's ludicrous claim that he 
was a victor. Such a claim was actually made by Pope even after he had 
been driven to Centreville ; and the correspondence on that occasion be- 
tween him and Halleck might be taken as a burlesque on Yankee official 
dispatches, if the originals did not exist in Washington. On the night of 
the 30th of August, Pope, at Centreville, had dispatched to Halleck, at 
Washington : " The enciny is badly whipped, and we shall do well enongh. 
Do not he uneasy. AVe will hold our own here. We have delayed the 

* Gen. Kearney met his death in a singular manner. He was out reconnoitering, when he sml- 
denly came upon a Georgia regiment. Perceiving danger, he shouted, " Don't fire — I'm a friend ! " 
but instantly wheeled his horse round, and, lying flat down upon the animal, had escaped many 
ballets, when one struck him at the bottom of the spine, and, ranging upwards, killed him almost 
iustantly. 



310 THE LOST CAUSE. 

enemy as long as possible without losing the array, "We have damaged 
him heavily, and I thhik the army entitled to the gratitude of the coun- 
try.'''' And Halleck rej)lied : " My dear General, you have done nobly." 
Br.t the Noithern public was in no humour to join in the congratulation, 
or to be amused by such stuff in official dispatches, A terrible situation 
was before their eyes. The Confederates had won the crowning victory 
of the campaign in Virginia ; they would certainly attempt a new adven- 
ture ; and so greatly had they risen in the opinion of their enemies, that 
'no project was thought too extravagant, or enterprise too daring, for the 
troops of Lee and Jackson. 

The change in the fortunes of the Confederacy had been rapid, deci- 
sive, and brilliant. The armies of Gens. McClellan and Fope had now 
been brought back to the point from which they set out on the campaigns 
of the spring and summer. The objects of those campaigns hp.d been frus- 
trated, and the designs of the enemy on the coast of ITorth Carolina, and 
in "Western Yirginia, thwarted by the withdrawal of the main body of his 
forces from those regions. ISTortheastern Virginia was freed from the pres- 
ence of Federal soldiers up to the entrenchments of "Washington, and as 
Lee's army marched towards Leesburg, information was received that the 
troops which had occupied "Winchester had retired to Harper's Ferry and 
Mai-tinsburg. 

The war was thus transferred from the interiour to the frontier ; the 
supplies of rich and productive districts were made accessible to our 
armies ; our forces were advancing upon the lines of the Potomac with 
increased numbers, improved organization, and the prestige of victory ; 
tmd the !N"orthern public, which, a little more than two months ago, was 
expecting the fall of Richmond and the surrender of the Confederate cause, 
now trembled for Pennsylvania and Ohio, and contemplated the probabili- 
ty of the Confederate occupation of Washington city. 

A large majority of the Southern people had long been in favour of 
transferring the war to the enemy's country at the earliest practicable 
moment. Their own experiences of the rigour of the war made them 
naturally anxious to visit its hardships and penalties upon the Northern 
people in their own homes ; it was declared that it was necessary to give 
the enemy some other realization of the war than that of an imraense 
money job, in which many profited ; and military science was adduced to 
explain that the offensive was the proper character to give to every war, 
and that the ulterior design to take it should be the end of all the actions 
of the belligerents. 

On the 3d September, Gen, Lee's army moved towards Leesburg, and 
it was soon understood that he designed crossing the Upper Potomac, and. 
transferring hostilities to the soil of Maryland. But in this first experi- 
ment of Confederate invasion, it must be remarked that Gen. Lee's designs 



INVASION OF aiAKYLAND. 311 

and expectations were mucli more moderate than tnoso commonly enter 
tained by the Confederate public. He did not desire to permit the season 
for active operations to pass without endeavouring to inflict further injury 
upon the enemy ; and as the works around Washington and Alexandria 
vrere too strong to be attacked, it was decided to find a new field of opera 
tions across the Potomac, somewhere between the Blue Ridge and tht 
Federal capital. 

When Lee crossed the Potomac, his army still continued to be divided 
into three commands — viz., the corps of Gen. Jackson, consisting of the 
divisions of Gens. A. P. Hill, Ewell, and his own division ; and that of 
Gen. Longstreet, composed of the divisions of Gens. McLaws, Walker, 
Anderson, and Hood ; and a division under Gen. D. H. Hill, which usually 
acted independently of either of the generals commanding corps. The 
cavalry, under Gen. Stuart, continued to cover the advance of the army. 
The scene of operations selected was the country between Washington and 
the range of hills bearing the name of South Mountain, and forming a 
continuation of the chain of the Blue Ridge on the northern side of the 
Potomac. 

On the 5th September the army crossed the fords of the Potomac, and 
on the 6tli Jackson's corps entered Frederick City (Maryland), situated on 
the right bank of the Monocacy River, a tributary of the Potomac. The 
divisions of Longstreet and D. H. Hill followed Jackson's corps across the 
Potomac, and the line of the Monocacy River was for a short time occu- 
pied by the Confederate forces. 

At Frederick, Gen. Lee issued the following proclamation to the peo- 
ple of Maryland, to explain the reasons that had induced him to enter 
their territory, and to reassure their supposed preference for the Confed- 
erate cause : 



"Headquakteks Akmt op Northern Vieoinia, 

" Near Febdebick, Monday, Sept. 8th, 1862. 

" To THE People of Maryland : 

" It is right that you should know the purpose that has brought the army under my 
command within the limits of your State, so far as that purpose concerns yourselves. 
The people of the Confederate States have long watched with the deepest sympathy the 
wrongs and outrages that have been inflicted upon the citizens of a commonwealth allied 
to the States of the South by the strongest social, political, and commercial ties, and re- 
duced to the condition of a conquered province. Under the pretence of supporting the 
Constitution, but in violation of its most valuable provisions, your citizens have been 
arrested and imprisoned, upon no charge, and contrary to all the forms of law. A faith- 
ful and manly protest against this outrage, made by an illustrious Marylander, to whom, 
in better days, no citizen appealed for right in vain, was treated with contempt and 
Bcorn. The Government of your chief city has been usurped by armed strangers ; your 
Legislature has been dissolved by the unlawful arrest of its members ; freedom of speech 
and of the press has been suppressed ; words have been declared offences by an arbitrary 



312 THE LOST CAUSE. 

decree of the Federal Executive, and citizens ordered to be tried by military comniissiom 
for what they may dare to speak. 

"Believing that the people of Maryland possess a spirit too lofty to submit to such a 
GoTernment, the people of the South have long wished to aid you in throwing off this 
foreign yoke, to enable you again to enjoy the inalienable rights of freemen, and restore 
the independence and sovereignty of your State. In obedience to this wish, our army 
has come among you, and is prepared to assist you with the power of its arms in regain- 
ing the rights of which you have been so unjustly despoiled. This, citizens of Maryland, 
is our mission, so far as you are concerned. No restraint upon your free will is intend- 
ed ; no intimidation will be allowed within the limits of this army, at least. Mary- 
landers shall once more enjoy their ancient freedom of thought and speech, "We know 
no enemies among you, and will protect all of you, in every opinion. It is for you to 
decide your destiny, freely, and without constraint. This army will respect your choice, 
whatever it may be ; and while the Southern people will rejoice to welcome you to your 
natural position among them, they will only welcome you when you come in of your 
own free will. 

" R. E. Lee, General Commanding.^'' 

The response of the people of Maryland to this appeal was not what 
Gen. Lee had been led to expect ; it was equivocal, timid, inconsiderable. 
Instead of the twenty or thirty thousand recruits wliich lie had believed he 
would obtain on the soil of Maryland, he found the people there content 
to gaze with wonder on his ragged and poorly-equipped army, but with 
little disposition to join its ranks. It is true that he had penetrated that 
part of the State which was not well affected towards the South, but in 
close neighbourhood and sympathy with Pennsylvania; and that whatever 
Southern sympathy there might be in Eastern Maryland, and in the noble 
city of Baltimore, it could scarcely reach him when it was held back at the 
point of the bayonet, and suppressed in the shadow of Federal forts. Fred- 
erick City, indeed, was not without some display of welcome. But expres- 
sions of confidence and joy appeared to have been lost in the one prevail- 
ing sentiment of wonder that the ragged men, stained with rain, and dust, 
and dirt, so devoid of all the pomp of war, so unlike what they had been 
accustomed to see of soldiers, could be the army which had defeated in so 
many engagements the apparently splendid troops of the North, and which 
had been heralded by imagination as a shining host, bearing aloft the 
emblem of victory, and kindling in the breast of the spectator the passion 
lor glory.* 

* The correspondent of a Northern journal thus writes of the appearance of the famous Jackson 
and the troops he led into Maryland : 

" Old Stonewall was the observed of all observers. He was dressed in the coarsest kind of home- 
spun, seedy and dirty at that ; wore an old hat which any Northern beggar would consider an insult 
to have offered him ; and in his general appearance was in no respect to be distinguished from the 
mongrel, bare-footed crew who followed his fortunes. I had heard much of the decayed appearance 
of the rebel soldiers, but such a looking crowd ! Ireland in her worst straits could present no paral- 
lel ; uad yet they glory in their shame ! " 



.APTUKE OF HARPEk's FERRY. 313 



CAPTUKE OF harper's FERRY, ETC. 

It had been siipx-)Osed by Gen. Loo tliat the advance npon Frederick 
would lead to tlie evacuation of Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry, thus 
openhig the line of communication through the valley. This not having 
occurred, it became necessary to dislodge the enemy from those positions, 
before concentrating the army west of the mountains. To accomplish this 
with the least delay, Gen. Jackson was directed to proceed with his com- 
mand to Martinsburg, and, after driving the enemy from that place, to 
move down the south side of the Potomac upon Harper's Ferry. 

On the 14th of September Gen. Jackson had succeeded in investing 
Harper's Ferry, with its garrison of nearly thirteen thousand men, on 
three sides. A division of Longstrect's corps, under McLaws, had been 
sent to attack and shut it up on tlie Maryland side, and now occupied the 
fertile tract of country which is enclosed by the continuation of the Mary- 
land Heights and the South Mountain spur of the Blue Ridge. The two 
ranges run nearly parallel for a little distance from the river, with an in- 
tervening space of about two miles in breadth, but the South Mountain 
branches off in the neighbourhood of Boonsboro', forming what is called 
the " Pleasant Yalley." 

But at this time occurred a most critical movement on the part of the 
enemy, originating in one of those little accidents wdiich sometimes discon- 
certs the schemes of the greatest conunanders. After the defeat of Pope, 
McClellan had again been placed at the head of the Federal armies in and 
around Washington. He was evidently at a loss to understand Lee's 
movements ; he remained inactive for several valuable days ; and he was 
restrained by President Lincoln's fears, who was anxious lest Gen. Lee, 
having, by a feint of advance into Maryland, drawn the army from Wash- 
ington, siiould turn around and capture the city by a coiijp de main. But 
accident, at last, revealed to him, not only the jDrecise nature of Lee's 
plans, but the exact disposition of his forces. 



Of the curiosity displayed towards Jackson, a Confederate officer, who shared the campaign in 
Maryland, gives the following amusing account : 

" Crowds were continually hanging round his headquarters, and peeping through the windows, aa 
if anxious to catch him at his " incantations." Others, again, actually thought that he was contin- 
ually praying, and imagined that angelic spirits were his companions and counsellors ; and it was not 
until the great man had mounted his old horse, and frequently aired himself in the streets, that many 
began to think him less than supernatural. Ilis shabby attire and unpretending deportment quite 
disappointed the many who expected to see a great display of gold lace and feathers ; and when be 
ordered his guards to clear his quarters of idle crowds, many went away muttering, ' Oh ! he'a no 
great shakes after all ! ' " 



314 THE LOST CAUSE. 

A copy of the order directing tlie movement of the army from Frede- 
rick had been sent to D. H. Hill ; and this vain and petulant officer, in a 
moment of passion, had thrown the paper on the ground. It was picked 
up by a Federal soldier, and McClellan thus strangely became possessed 
of the exact detail of his adversary's plan of operations. 

His first thought was to relieve Harper's Ferry. He immediately 
began to push forward rapidly, and on the afternoon of the 13th was. 
reported approaching the pass in South Mountain on the Boonesboro' and 
Frederick road. By penetrating the mountains at this point, he would 
reach the rear of McLaws, and be enabled to relieve the garrison at Har- 
per's Ferry. To prevent this. Gen. D. H. Hill was directed to guard the 
Boonesboro' Gap, and Longstreet ordered to march from Hagerstown to his 
support. 

The small command of Gen. Hill repelled the repeated assaults of the 
Federal army, and held it in check for live hours. Several attacks on the 
centre were gallantly repulsed by Colquitt's brigade, and Rodes, on the 
left, maintained his position against heavy odds with the utmost tenacity. 
Longstreet, leaving one brigade at Hagerstown, had hurried to the assist- 
ance of Hill, and reached the scene of action between three and four, p. m. 
His troops, much exhausted by a long, rapid march and the heat of the 
day, were disposed on both sides of the turnpike. The battle continued 
with great animation until night. On the south of the turnpike, the ene- 
my was driven back some distance, and his attack on the centre repulsed 
with loss. His great superiourity of numbers enabled him to extend beyond 
both of the Confederate flanks. By this means he succeeded in reaching 
the summit of the mountain, beyond om- left, and pressing heavily from 
that direction, gradually forced our troops back, after an obstinate resist- 
ance. Darkness put an end to the contest. The effort to force the pass- 
age of the moimtains had failed, but it was manifest that, without rein- 
forcements, we could not hazard a renewal of the engagement, as the 
enemy could easily turn either flank. Information was also received that 
another large body of Federal troops had, during the afternoon, forced 
their way through Crampton's Gap, only five miles in rear of McLaws. 
Under these circumstances, it was determined by Gen. Lee to retire to 
Sharpsburg, where he would be upon the flank and rear of the enemy, 
should he move against McLaws, and where he could more readily unite 
with the rest of the army. 

The resistance that had been offered to the enemy at Boonesboro', 
secured sufficient time to enable Gen. Jackson to complete the reduction 
of Harpers Ferry. On the afternoon of the 14:th, when he found that the 
troops of Walker and McLaws were in position to cooperate in the attack 
he ordered Gen. A. P. Hill to turn the enemy's left flank, and enter Har 
per's Ferry. Gen. A. P. Hill observing a hill on the enemy's extreme left 



BATTLE OF SHAKPSBUEG. 315 

occupied by infantry without artillery, and protected only by abattis of 
felled timber, directed Gen. Pender with his own brigade, and those ot 
Archer and Col. Brockenbrough, to seize the crest, which was done with 
Blight resistance. At the same time he ordered Gens. Branch and Gregg 
to march along the Shenandoah, and taking advantage of the ravines in- 
tersecting its steep banks, to establish themselves on the plain to the left 
and rear of the enemy's works. This was accomplished during the night. 
Under the direction of Col. Crutchfield, Gen. Jackson's chief of artillery, 
ten guns, belonging to Ewell's division, were posted on the east side of the 
Shenandoah, so as to enfilade the enemy's entrenchments on Bolivar 
Heights, and take his nearest and most formidable works in reverse. Gen. 
McLaws, in the meantime, made his preparations to prevent the force 
which had penetrated at Crampton's Gap from coming to the relief of the 
garrison. 

The attack on the garrison began at dawn. A rapid and vigorous fire 
was opened from the batteries of Gen. Jackson and those on Maryland 
and Loudoun Heights. In about two hours the garrison surrendered. 
Seventy-three pieces of artillery, about thirteen thousand small arms, and 
a large quantity of military stores, fell into our hands. 

Leaving Gen. A. P. Hill to receive the surrender of the Federal troops, 
and secure the captured property, Gen. Jackson, with his two other divi- 
sions, set out at once for Sharpsburg, ordering Gens. McLaws and Walker 
to follow without delay. Gen. Jackson arrived early on the 16th, and 
Gen. Walker came up in the afternoon. The progress of McLaws was 
slow, and he did not reach the battle-field at Sharpsburg, until some time 
after the engagement of the 17th began. 



BATTLE OF 8HAEPSBUKG. 

Gen. Lee was now prepared to deliver battle, and to meet the mighty 
Federal host with about forty thousand men. McClellan's force was cer- 
tainly not less than ninety thousand men. We have placed here the own 
ofiicial estimate of each commander of the strength of his respective army, 
as the justest exhibition of the disproportion of the forces joined in the 
battle of Sharpsburg. 

The commands of Longstreet and D. H. Hill occupied a position along 
the range of hills between the town and the Antietam, nearly parallel to 
the course of that stream ; Longstreet on the right of the road to Boones- 
boro', and Hill on the left. The extreme left was held by Jackson, his 
right resting upon the Hagerstown road, and his left extending towards 
the Potomac. 

As the sim of the 17th September rose, the batteries on either side opened 



31G THE LOST CAUSE. 

fire. TliG heaviest fire of the enemy's artillery was directed against oui 
left, and, under cover of it, a large force of infantry attacked Gen. Jack- 
son. This heroic commander held the strongest part of a line which ex- 
tended over four miles. The advance of the enemy was met by his troops 
with the ntniost resolution, and for several honrs the conflict raged with 
groat fury and alternate success. Hood's two brigades were moved to the 
sappoi't of Jackson. The enemy's lines were broken and forced back ; but 
fresh numbers advanced to their support, and the Federals began to gain 
ground. The desperate resistance they encountered, however, delayed 
their progress until the troops of Gen. McLaws arrived, and those of Gen. 
"Walker cQuld be brought from the right. With these timely reinforce- 
ments the tide changed ; the Confederates again advanced, and the enemy 
were driven back in confusion, closely followed by our troops, beyond the 
position occupied at the beginning of the engagement. The enemy re- 
newed the assault on our left several times, but was repulsed with loss. 
He finally ceased to advance his infantry, and for several hours kept up a 
fm-ious fire from his numerous batteries, under which our troops held their 
position with great coolness and courage. 

The attack on our left was speedily followed by one in heavy force on 
the centre. This was met by part of Walker's division, and the brigades 
of G. B. Anderson and Rodes, of D. H. Hill's command, assisted by a few 
l^ieces of artillery. The enemy was repulsed, and retired behind the crest 
of a hill, from which they kept up a desultory fire. 

Gen. E.. H. Anderson's division came to Hill's support, and formed in 
rear of his line. At this time, by a mistake of orders, Gen. Rodes' brigade 
was withdrawn from its position. The enemy immediately pressed through 
the gap thus created, and G. B. Anderson's brigade was broken, and re- 
tired. The heavy masses of the enemy again moved forward, being op- 
posed only by four pieces of artillery, supported by a few hundreds of 
men, belonging to difierent brigades. The firm front presented by this 
small force, and the well directed fire of the artillery, under Captain Mil- 
ler, of the Washington Artillery, and Captain Boyce's South Carolina 
battery, checked the progress of the enemy, and in about an hour and a 
half he retired. 

While the attack on the centre and left was in progress, the enemy 
made repeated efforts to force the passage of the bridge over the Antietam, 
opposite the right wing of Gen. Longstrcet. commanded by Brig.-Gcn. D. 
It. Jones. This bridge was defended by Gen. Toombs with two regiments 
of his brigade. Gen. Toombs' small command repulsed five difierent 
assaults, made by a greatly superiour force, and maintained its position 
with distinguished gallantry. 

In the afternoon, the enemy began to extend his line, as if to cross the 
Antietam below the bridge, and at four, p. u., Toombs' regiments retired 



BATTLE OF SHAKPSBDKG. 317 

fi'om tlic position they had so bravely held. The enemy immediately 
crossed the bridge in large numbers, and advanced against Gen. Jones, 
who held the crest with less than two thousand men. After a determined 
and brave resistance, he was forced to give way, and the enemy gained tne 
summit. 

Gen. A. P. Hill had arrived from Harper's Ferry, having left that 
place at half-past seven, a. m. He was now ordered to reinforce Gen. 
Jones. Hill's batteries were thrown forward, and united their fire with 
those of Gen. Jones. The progress of the enemy was immediately arrest- 
ed, and his line began to waver. At this moment Gen. Jones ordered 
Toombs to charge the flank, while Archer, supported by Branch and Gregg, 
moved upon the front of the Federal line. The enemy made a brief resist- 
ance, then broke, and retreated in confusion towards the Antietam, pur- 
sued by the troops of Hill and Jones, until he reached the protection of 
the batteries on the opposite side of the river. 

It was now nearly dark, and the enemy had massed a number of bat- 
teries to sweep the approaches to the Antietam, on the opposite side of 
which the corps of Gen. Porter, which had not been engaged, now ap- 
peared, to dispute our advance. Our troops were much exhausted, and 
greatly reduced in numbers by fatigue and the casualties of battle. Under 
these circumstances, it was deemed injudicious to push our advantage 
further, in the face of fresh troops of the enemy much exceeding the num- 
ber of our own. They were accordingly recalled. 

This repulse of the enemy ended the engagement. The sum of the 
day's work was, that every effort of the enemy to dislodge us from our 
position had been defeated with severe loss. The conflict had been pro- 
tracted and sanguinary. The spoils of the victory were not great. A few 
prisoners and guns were taken. As for our loss, it had indeed been heavy, 
amounting to not less than two thousand killed and six thousand wounded ; 
including among the former, two general ofiicers, Gens. Branch and Starke. 
The Federals, having been the assailants, their loss was yet more severe, 
reachinir tlie terrible airffreo-ate of twelve thousand dead or disabled men. 
Their sacrifice of officers had been serious. Gens. Mansfield and Reno 
were killed, and twelve other Generals were among the wounded. 

Gen. Lee had especial reasons for not renewing the battle the next day. 
The arduous service in which his troops had been engaged, their gi*eat 
pri'^ations of rest and food, and the long marches, without shoes, over 
mot.ntain roads, had greatly reduced their ranks before the action began ; 
and they had been seriously diminished in the terrible action they had just 
fought. Although too weak to assume the offensive. Gen. Lee awaited 
without apprehension a renewal of the attack. The day passed without 
any demonstration on the part of the enemy, who, from the reports re- 
ceived, was expecting the arrival of reinforcements. As Gen. Lee could 



318 ' THE LOST CAUSE. 

not look for a material increase of strength, and tlie enemy's numbers could 
be lari^elj and rapidly augmented, it was not thought to be prudent to wait 
until he should be ready again to offer battle. During the night of the 
18th September, his army was accordingly withdrawn to the south side 
of the Potomac, crossing near Shepherdstown without loss or molestation. 

It is curious to observe by what successive steps the North constructed 
the pretence of a victory at Sharpsburg. McClellan never claimed a vic- 
tory until assured of Lee's retreat into Yirginia. On the 19th, he tele- 
graphed to Washington : " I do not know if the enemy is falling back to 
an interiour position, or recrossing the river. We may safely claim the vic- 
tory as ours," He did not assert this until more than thirty hours had 
elapsed subsequent to the engagement at Sharpsburg ! Some few hours 
after the above telegram, he consoled the authorities at Washington by 
saying : " Our victory is complete ! The enemy is driven back into Yir- 
ginia. Maryland and Pennsylvania are now safe ! " 

If McClellan was under the impression that he had won a victory, he 
showed but little disposition to improve it, or to gather its fruits. He at- 
tempted no pursuit ; and when, some days later, a force he had thrown 
across the Potomac was dislodged by an attack of A. P. Hill's division, he 
wrote to Washington asking for reinforcements ; and on the 27th Septem- 
ber renewed the application, stating his purpose to be to hold the army 
where it was, and to attack Lee, should he attempt to recross into Mary- 
land. Meanwhile the Confederate army moved leisurely towards Mar- 
tinsburg, and remained in the vicinity of Bunker Hill and Winchester, to 
recruit after a campaign which has few parallels in history for active ope- 
ration and brilliant results. 



1 



CHAPTER XIX. 

TVrS "WKSTEKN THEATRE OF THE ■WAR. — VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. — EVACUATION OV 

COEINTn. IMPORTANT OBJECTS OF THE MOVEMENT. ITS SUCCESS. THE H ALLECK- POPB 

DISPATCH. — AN ENORMOUS FALSEHOOD. — GEN. BEAUREGAEd's COMMENTS ON IT. — OAPTURK 

OF MEMPHIS. — AN UNEQUAL FIGHT ON THE RIVER. — BOMBARDMENT OF VICKSBURG. 

GREAT IMPORTANCE OF THIS POINT. — PREPARATIONS FOR ITS DEFENCE BY VAN DOEN. — 
THE n'vON-OLAD ARKANSAS. — SHE BUNS THE GAUNTLET OF THE ENEMY's FLEET. — THRILL- 
ING SCENE OF THE ADVENTURE. — FAILURE OF THE FIRST ATTEMPT OF THE ENEMY UPON 
VICKSBURG. — ENGAGEMENT AT BATON KOUGE. — SUCCESS OF BRECKINEIDGE's ATTACK. — 
HE WAITS FOR THE lEON-CLAD ARKANSAS. — SHE BECOMES UNMANAGEABLE AND 13 FIEED 
BY HEE CREW. — WITHDRAWAL OF BEECKINRIDGE FEOM BATON EOUGE. — CONFEDERATE 
OCCUPATION OF POET HUDSON. — THE KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN. — GEN. BRAGG IN COMMAND 
OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY IN THE WEST. — HOW GEN. BEAUREGARD WAS RETIRED. — 
BRAGG's plan OF OPERATIONS AGAINST KENTUCKY. — MORGAN'S RAID. — DISPOSITION OP 
THE FEDERAL FORCES WEST OF THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. — CO-OPEEATION OF KIEBY 
SMITH WITH BEAGg's COLUMN. — BATTLE OF EICHMOND. — KIEBY SMITH IN A POSITION 
TO THEEATEN BOTH CINCINNATI AND LOUISVILLE. — BEAGG's MOVEMENT TO INTEEOEPT 
BUELL. — THE LATTEE CONCENTEATING AT BOWLING GEEEN. — GEEAT SUCCESS OF BEAGG's 

MOVEMENT SO FAR HIS BOASTFUL DISPATCH TO RICHMOND. — HIS POLITICAL OBJECT 

IN INVADING KENTUCKY. — HIS PROCLAMATION AT GLASGOW. — SUREENDEE OF THE 
FEDEEAL GAEEISON AT MUMFORDSVILLE. — BEAGG's WHOLE AEMY BETWEEN NASH- 
VILLE AND LOUISVILLE. HIS SPLENDID OPPOETUNITY. — HE DOES NOT USE IT. HB 

PEEMIT3 BUELL TO PASS TO LOUISVILLE WITHOUT A BATTLE. — HIS WEAK EXCUSE FOR 

A FATAL EEEOUE. THE FEDEEALS NOW ABLE TO EESUME THE OFFENSIVE IN KENTUCKY. 

— BEAGG's uncertain MOVEMENTS. — HIS DISARRANGED PLAN OF BATTLE. — GEN. POLk's 
DISOBEDIENCE OF ORDERS. — BATTLE OF PEREYVILLE. — BEAGG's UNFORTUNATE DISTEIBU- 
TION OF FOECES. — MISAPPREHENSION OF KIEBY SMITH. — WITHERS' DIVISION NOT IN 

THE FIGHT. THE ENEMY DRIVEN. AEEIVAL OF ANOTHER OF HIS CORPS UPON THE 

FIELD. BRAGG RETIRES UPON BRYANTSVILLE. — HE DETERMINES TO EVACUATE KENTUCKY. 

— RETREAT THROUGH CUMBERLAND GAP. DISAPPOINTMENT AT EICHMOND. — EREOUES 

OF THE KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN. — HOW FAE IT WAS A CONFEDEEATE SUCCESS. ITS LAEQB 

CAPTUEES. NOETH ALABAMA AND MIDDLE TENNESSEE REDEEMED. — BRAGG IN FRONT 

OF NASHVILLE. — OPERATIONS IN THE SOUTHWEST. — BATTLE OF CORINTH. — MOVEMENTS 
OP VAN DOEN AND PEICE. — THE AFFAIR OF lUKA. — VAN DOEN's REASONS FOE ATTACK- 
ING COEINTH. — GALLANT AND IMPETUOUS OHAEGE OF PEICE's TEOOPS. — THE SECOND 
day's FIGHT. — MISMANAGEMENT OP THE ATTACK ON THE ENEMy's WORKS. — TEERIBLB 



320 THE LOST CAUSE. 

SLAT7GHTER AT COLLEGE HILL. THE COXFEDEEATES EEPtTLSED. AFFAIR ON THE HATCHIH 

EIVER. — VAX DORX'S RETREAT, — REVIEW OF THE SUMMER AND ATJTUMX CAMPAIGNS 05 

1862. GLORY OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMS. REFLECTION OF THE LONDON TIMES ON THE 

" NEW NATIONALITY." 

"While the events we have related in the two preceding chapters were 
taking place in Virginia and on its borders, an important campaign was 
occurring in the country west of the Alleghany Mountains, and in the 
valley of the Mississippi River ; and while Lee entered Maryland, Bragg 
invaded Kentucky, threatening the line of the Ohio, thus in every direction 
bringing the front of the war to the enemy's own territory. But before 
reaching that period wherein the Confederate arms in the West were 
carried to the frontier, as h} a parallel movement with the operations in 
Virginia, it is necessary to recount a number of preceding events in the 
Western theatres of the war, in which the lights of victory and shadows 
of defeat were strangely mingled. 



EVACUATION OF COKINTH. 

At the last point of our narrative of operations in the West, Gen. 
Beauregard was holding Corinth ; an important strategic position, pro- 
tecting his communications by the two railroads intersecting there. The 
trans-Mississippi campaign being considered closed for some time. Price 
and Van Dorn, with a division of Missourians and some Arkansas troops, 
liad crossed the Mississippi and joined Beauregard, with a view of ope- 
rating on the east bank of the river. It was soon ascertained that the 
immense forces of Grant and Buell, combined under command of Halleck, 
were slowly advancing. The movement of the enemy threatened Beau- 
regard's left, along the Mobile and Ohio railroad, while he had alread}^ 
pushed along the Memphis and Charleston road, camping about three 
miles from Corinth. To foil the design of the enemy ; to protect his 
most important line of Southern communication ; to obtain a better 
position to fortify ; and to secure the health of his troops, Gen. Beau- 
regard decided to evacuate Corinth. The objects of the movement were 
all important. Our main railroad communication with Richmond via 
Chattanooga, was in the enemy's possession, and the only line of com- 
munication we now had with the Confederate capital was the devious 
one, by way of Mobile, Alabama, and Georgia. Corinth was inde- 
fensible. It vas a wretched site for a camp, utterly destitute of water, 
good or bad, and what little could be obtained, was scooped up from tlie 
sand, or from pools fed by occasional rains. 

The evacuation was commenced on the SOth of May. Remaining in 



EVACUATION OF CORINTH. 321 

rear of the Tuscumbia and its affluents, some six miles from Corinth, long 
enough to collect stragglers, Gen. Beauregard resumed his march, con- 
centrating his main forces at Baldwin. On the 7th of June he left Bald- 
win, it offering no advantages, of a defensive character, and assembled 
the main body of his forces at Tupelo. Tiie position selected was an 
excellent one to protect the south branches of the Mobile and New 
Orleans railroads. The movement of Gen. Beauregard was a surprise 
to the enemy, and a decided success. His effective force did not exceed 
forty-seven thousand men of all arms, and he had skilfully avoided attack 
from an enemy superiour in numbers. By holding Corinth, he had gained 
time, and held the enem}^ in check without a battle ; and by retreating 
when he did, he out-generaled Halleck, rendered him powerless to move, 
and saved Mississippi from the inroad of a large army, which would have 
followed him into the interiour at an earlier season of the year, but was 
now unable to do so, from weakened forces and the great heats.* 

Gen. Halleck attempted to break the news of his discomfiture by a 
flaming official despatch to "Washington, in which he was assisted by 
Gen. John Pope, then acting under him, to one of the most monstrous 
falsehi?ods of the war. This false despatch is so characteristic of the Fed- 
eral method in dealing with the facts of the war, that it may be copied 
here for a general lesson to the reader : 

* The correspondent of a Northern journal thus betravs the disappointment of the enemy, and 
he damage to his expectationa and plans in Beauregard's evacuation of Corinth : 

" I went all over the tented field of the enemy — all over the fortifications — aU over the town 

talked ^vith the frank druggist and the sturdy Irishman that had worked upon the railroad. And so 
do I write what I saw in grief, mortification, chagrin, and shame. I said yesterday : ' I'll write no 
more ; others may ; I can't. Patriotism will not let me write what I have seen, and can swear to.' 
When I write such words as I am sometimes compelled to, if I write at all, I am afraid lest, in ex- 
posing military imbecility, I shall wound and damage our beautiful commonwealth, that struggles so 
tremendously for existence and perpetuity. 

" But I do religiously believe that it is best now for the commonwealth to hear and heed what is 
bitter, undisputed fact — the Confederate strategy since the battle of Shiloh has been as successful as 
it has been superiour. Taking the enemy's stand-pomt, and writing when and where I do, I cannot 
possibly imagine how it could have been more eminent for perfection and success. Takmg our 
stand-pomt — the stand-point of the Union's hopes and Halleck's fame — I cannot possibly imagine 
how it could have been more mortifyingly disastrous. If the attack at Shiloh was a surprise to Gen. 
Grant, the evacuation of Corinth was no less a surprise to Gen. Halleck. If the one ruined Grant, 
the other has laid out in palUd death the military name and fame of Major-Gen, Halleck. 

" The druggist says he was two Tveeks getting away. But aside from such testunony, could the 
army of Beauregard be removed so cleanly, and completely, and noiselessly, during a night, or day 
and night, or two days and two nights ? Did it require the tremendous concussion of the magazine 
explosion to get into our ears — what we could not get into our eyes — the evacuation ? Why that 
was the last act of the mortifying drama. On Friday morning we went in. The prisoners that we 
captured amounted to about four hundred. Four hundred ! Even the beggarly picket re"-iments 
»nd light artillery that fought us so boldly, got away. Those that we caught declare that they were 
kept in ignorance of the movements at Corinth, and were as much surprised at the evacuation as 
ourselves. Corinth has been searched in vain for a spiked or disabled gun. Shame on us what a 
slean piece of evacuation it was." 
21 



322 THE LOST CAUSE. 

"HEADQnABTERS, June 4, 1862. 

" Gen. Pope, with forty thousand men, is thirty miles south of Corinth, pushing the 
enemy hard. lie already reports ten thousand prisoners and deserters from the enemy, 
and fifteen thousand stand of arms captured. 

" Thousands of the enemy are throwing away their arms. A farmer said, that when 
Beauregard learned that Col. Elliot had cut the railroad on his line of retreat, he became 
frantic, and told his men to save themselves the best way they could. 

" We have captured nine locomotives and a number of cars. One of the former is 
already prepared, and is running to-day. Several more will be in running order in two 
or three days. The result is all I could possibly desire. 

" H. "W". IIalleok, Major- General CommandjingP 



Gen. Beauregard's comments on the above, published in the Mobile 
Register, were to the following effect : 



"Hbadqtjaktbes, Westeen Depaetment, Jnne ITtli. 

" Gentlemen : My attention has just been called to the dispatch of Major-Gen. Hal- 
leck, commanding the enemy's forces, which, coming from such a source, is most remark- 
able in one respect — that it contains as many misrepresentations as lines. 

" Gen. Pope did not ' push hard ' upon me with forty thousand men thirty miles from 
Corinth on the 4th inst., for my troops occupied a defensive line in the rear of ' Twenty 
Mile Creek,' less than twenty-five miles from Corinth, until the 8th inst., when the want 
of good water induced me to retire at my leisure to a better position. Moreover, if Gen. 
Pope had attempted, at any time during the retreat from Corinth, to push hard upon 
me, I would have given him such a lesson as would have checked his ardour ; but he 
was careful to advance only after my troops had retired from each successive position. 

" The retreat was conducted with great order and precision, doing much credit to the 
officers and men under my orders, and must be looked upon, in every respect, by the 
country, as equivalent to a brilliant victory. 

" Gen. Pope must certainly have dreamed of taking ten thousand prisoners and fifteen 
thousand stand of arms ; for we positively never lost them. About one or two hundred 
stragglers would probably cover all the prisoners he took, and about five hundred dam- 
aged muskets is all the arms he got. These belonged to a convalescent camp, four miles 
south of Corinth, evacuated during the night, and were overlooked on account of the 
darkness. The actual number of prisoners taken during the retreat was about equal on 
both sides, and they were but few. 

" M.ijor-Gen. Halleck must be a very credulous man, indeed, to believe the absurd 
story of ' that farmer.' He ought to know that the burning of two or more cars on a 
railroad is not suflicieut to make ' Beauregard frantic ' and ridiculous, especially when I 
expected to hear every moment of the capture of the marauding party, whose departure 
from Farmington had been communicated to me the day before, and I had given, in con- 
sequence, all necessary orders ; but a part of my forces passed Booneville an hour before 
the arrival of Colonel Elliot's command, and the other part arrived just in time to drive 
it away and liberate the convalescents captured ; unfortunately, however, not in time to 
save four of the sick, who were barbarously consumed in the station-house. Let Col. 
Elliot's name descend to infamy as the author of such a revolting deed. Gen. Halleck 
did not capture nine locomotives. It was only by the accidental destruction of a bridge, 
before some trains had passed, that he got seven engines in a damaged condition, the cars 
having been burned ^y my orders. 



CAPTURE OF MEMPHIS. 323 

" It is, in fact, easy to see how little the enemy respect truth and justice when speak- 
ing of their military operations, especially wheH, through inability or over-confidence, 
they meet with deserved failure. 

"If the result be all he desired, it can be said that Major-Gen. Halleck is easily 
satisfied ; it remains to be seen whether his Government and people will be of the like 
opinion. 

" I attest that all we lost at Corinth and during the retreat would not amount to one 
day's expense of his army. G. T. Beatjbkgard." 



CAPTUKE OF MEMPHIS. 

A few days after Gen. Beauregard's movement from Corinth, the city 
of Memphis having been abandoned by the Confederate garrison departing 
to another scene of action, was easily captured by the large Federal fleet 
in the Mississippi River. The capture was made on the 6th of June. 
The evacuation of Forts Pillow and Randolph had taken place two days 
before. In the river near Memphis was a small fleet of Confederate boats. 
It consisted of the General Yan Dorn, (flag-ship,) General Price, General 
Bragg, Jefi". Thompson, General Lovell, General Beauregard, Sumter, and 
Little Rebel, all under the command of Com. Montgomery. Each of these 
boats carried an armament of two guns, with the exception of the JeS. 
Thompson, which had four. 

The Federal gunboats consisted of the following : the gunboat Benton, 
(flag-ship of Com. Davis,) mounting fourteen guns ; gunboat St. Louis, 
thirteen guns ; gunboat Mound City, thirteen guns ; gunboat Louisville, 
thirteen guns ; gunboat Cairo, thirteen guns ; gunboat Carondelet, thir- 
teen guns ; three mortar-boats, and twenty rams and transports. This 
overwhelming force advanced, with several of their rams in front, their 
iron-clad gunboats in the centre, two and three abreast, and their mortar- 
boats and transports bringing up their rear. 

The unequal fight lasted but a few hours. The Jefl*. Thompson, Beau- 
regard, Sumter, and Bragg were respectively disabled, run ashore, or set 
on fire, their crews meanwhile escaping to the woods. The Jefl'. Thompson 
was blown uj), the Beauregard sunk near the shore, her upper- works 
remaining above the surface. The Sumter and Bragg were the only 
boats that could be brought ofi", and these were subsequently anchored 
in front of the city, with the odious flag of the invaders flying at their 
mast-heads. The Confederate loss did not exceed fifty in killed and 
wounded, and one hundred prisoners. On the boats captured and 
destroyed, there was but a small quantity of stores and munitions, and 
everything in the city of value to the government had been removed. 
Beyond the mere fact of obtaining possession of the position, the victory 
of the enemy was a barren one. 



321 THE LOST CAUSE. 



BOMBAEDMENT OF VICKSBUEG. 



But the enemy was now to attempt a much more important step 
towards opening the navigation of the Mississippi River — a result persis- 
tently demanded by the Northwestern States as the j)rice of their con- 
tributions to the war, and their support of the Administration at 
"Washington. 

The Confederates had been prompt to perceive the great importance 
of Vicksburg ; and on the fall of New Orleans, Gen. Lovell had ordered 
a detail of his force to garrison the place and construct works for its 
defence. It was the most important point in the Yalley of the Mississippi. 
Thousands of men, supplies, and raateriel were continually crossing the 
river — much of our provisions for the armies in the East and West being 
derived from Texas, parts of Louisiana, and Arkansas. Could the Federals 
obtain possession of Yicksburg, all the agricultural products of the North- 
ern and Western States would pass down unmolested to the Gulf; the 
enemy would gain free access to the whole river front, supply themselves 
abundantly with cotton, sugar, molasses, and other products, disjoin the 
east and west Mississippi States, and, having the Confederacy fairly on 
its flanks, could operate with impunity upon numberless points, divide 
our forces, and open a new prospect of subjugation. 

When in the summer of 1862, Gen. Earl Van Dorn was assigned to 
the defence of Yicksburg, he found the city besieged by a powerful fleet 
of war vessels, and an army. Many of the citizens retired to the interiour, 
while the Confederate troops marched in, and pitched their tents in the 
valleys and on the hills adjacent in convenient position to support batteries 
and strike assailants. Breckinridge's division occupied the city. Additional 
guns were brought up from Mobile, from Richmond, from Columbus and 
elsewhere, and put in battery, preparatory for a grand trial of artillery 
with the enemy's fleet. 

The attacking force of the enemy was at first confined to Porter's mortar 
fleet, and Farragut's gunboats, with their attendant array in transports, 
which had ascended the river from New Orleans. The evacuation of Fort 
Pillow, and the fall of Memphis, opened the new danger of a combination 
between the upper and lower fleets of the enemy. The junction was 
effected early in July, and thus a force of more than forty gunboats, 
mortar-boats, rams and transports lay in menace before the city. On 
the 12th of July it opened fire. 

While the enemy had been completing his preparations for the bom- 
bardment of Yicksburg, the Confederates had been engaged in a well- 
masked enterprise, and Com. Lynch having improvised a ship-yard near 



ENGAGEMENT AT BATON EOUGE. 325 

5fazoo City, had been hard at work, night and day, fitting out a ram, 
called the A]"kansas. At the mouth of the Yazoo River, a raft had been 
biult, to afford some sort of protection to the fleet of river passenger and 
freight boats, that had escaped from New Orleans, and were now concealed 
in this river, and to put bounds to the enemy's curiosity. One of these 
vessels was razeed by Com. Lynch, and the construction of the ungainly 
Arkansas begun. Four large guns Avere placed aboard ; and on the 15th 
of July, Gen. Van Dorn issued an order to prepare her for immediate and 
active service, it being intended to use her as part of his force for the 
relief of Vicksburg. 

In the early morning of this day, this rough ungainly vessel, which it 
was anticipated might compete with the deeds of the famous Virginia in 
Hampton Roads, passed through the raft of the Yazoo, and commenced 
the fearful gauntlet of the enemy's vessels drawn up in parallel lines to 
receive her when passing the channel of the Mississippi River. Frigates, 
rams, gunboats — all were ready to annihilate that iron-clad mass of timber 
slowly floating towards them. Presently an iron-clad left her position, 
and boldly steaming up between the lines of dark hulls, opened fire at a 
considerable distance. The Arkansas was silent, and nothing was seen 
but a rush of steam as the monster slowly entered the channel. Once 
her bow gun was fired, smashing the boiler and machinery of one of the 
enemy's vessels. A few moments more, and a terrific fire from both of the 
enemy's squadrons was poured upon the strange vessel, which appeared 
now as a mass of sparks floating between parallel lines of curling smoke. 
On the bluff were a thousand breathless spectators of the fearful scene. 
The Arkansas moved on. Fighting at long range, the Federal fleet slowly 
followed, and the nearer she approached the blufl", the quicker the Arkansas 
fought. At last finding her safe under the Confederate batteries, the 
enemy gave up the chase, and amid cheers from the excited spectators on 
the blnff and a salvo of artillery, the Arkansas slowly turned the point 
and was moored before Vicksburg ! 

With the failure to destroy or take the Arkansas, the siege of Vicks- 
burg practically ended. The attack on the batteries soon ceased, and the 
enemy, baffled and enraged by an unexpected, determined and persistent 
defence, vented his wrath in impotent and barbarian effort to destroy the 
city. On the 27th of July, both fleets disappeared, foiled in their struggle 
to reduce the place. The casualties on our side, during the entire siege, 
w^re twenty-two killed and wounded. Not a gun was dismounted, and 
but two were temporarily disabled. 

ENGAGEMENT AT BATON KOUGE. 

Satisfied of the enemy's disappearance from Vicksburg, Gen. Van 



326 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Dom resolved to strike a blow before lie bad time to organize and mature 
a new scheme of assault. The Federals held Baton Eouge, the capital of 
Louisiana, forty miles below the mouth of Red Eiver, with a land force of 
about three thousand live hundred men, in conjunction with four or five 
gunboats, and some transports. It was a matter of great necessity to us 
that the navigation of Eed Kiver should be opened as high as Yicksburg 
Supplies, much needed, existed there, difficult to be obtained from any 
other quarter, and strong military reasons demanded that we should holo 
the Mississippi at two points, to facilitate communications and co-operation 
between Van Dorn's district and the trans-Mississippi department. The 
capture of Baton Rouge, and the forces of the enemy at that point, would 
open the Mississippi, secure the navigation of Red River, then in a state 
of blockade, and might make practicable the recapture of l^ew Orleans. 

To secure these objects, orders were given to Gen. Breckinridge to 
move upon Baton Rouge with a force of five thousand men, picked from 
the troops at Yicksburg, and there was added to his command the efi'ective 
force of Gen. Ruggles, then at Camp Moore, making a total force of six 
thousand men. To ensure the success of the plan, the Arkansas was or- 
dered to co-operate with the land force by a simultaneous attack from the 
river. All damages sustained by the Arkansas from the fleets of the 
enemy had been repaired, and when she left the wharf at Yicksburg for 
Baton Rouge, she was deemed to be as formidable, in attack or defence, as 
when she defied a fleet of forty vessels of war, many of them iron-clads. 

By epidemic disease the land force nnder Gen. Breckinridge was ro- 
duced to less than three thousand eflbetive men, within the period of ten 
days after he reached Camp Moore. Advised, however, by telegram every 
hour of the progress of the Arkansas towards Baton Rouge, and counting 
on her co-operation, Breckinridge, on the morning of the 5th August, de- 
termined to attack the enemy wdth his whole effective force, then reduced 
o about two thousand five hundred men. The attack was gallantly made ; 
and the enemy, driven from all his positions, was forced to seek protection 
under the cover of his gunboats. 

Breckinridge had listened in vain for the guns of the Arkansas. She 
never reached the scene of contest. After arriving within a short distance 
of Baton Rouge, in ample time for joint action at the appointed hour of 
attack, slie had suddenly become unmanageable, from a failure in her 
machinery, which all the efforts of her engineers could not repair. Lieut. 
Stevens, her commander, moored her to the shore ; and on the cautious 
approach of the enemy, he landed her crew, cut her from her moorings, 
fired her with his own hands, and turned h^r adrift down the river. With 
every gun shotted, the Confederate flag floating from her prow, and not a 
man on board, the Arkansas bore down upon the enemy. It was a strange 
spectacle, this vessel, abandoned by commander and crew, and dedicated 



THE KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN. 327 

to sacrifice, yet fighting a battle like a thing of life. Her guns were dis- 
charged as the flames reached them, and when her last shot w^as fired, the 
explosion of her magazine ended the brief career of the Arkansas. 

Unable, without the co-operation of this vessel, to penetrate the cover 
of the enemy's gunboats. Gen. Breckinridge withdrew his trooj)S at ten 
o'clock in the morning. He had fought a brilliant action, but was unable 
to pm-oue his victory further. Our casualties amounted to four hundred 
and sixty-seven. The force of the enemy brought into action was not less 
than forty-five hundred men. "We had eleven pieces of field artillery. 
They brought to bear on us not less than eighteen pieces, exclusive of the 
guns of the fleet. In one respect the contrast between the opposing forces 
was very strking. The Federal troops were well clothed, and their en- 
campments showed the presence of every comfort and even luxury. Our 
men had little transportation, indifferent food, and no shelter. Half of 
them had no coats, and hundreds of them were without either shoes or 
socks ; yet no troops ever behaved with greater gallantry, and even reck- 
less audacity. 

Advised of the result of Gen. Breckinridge's expedition. Gen. Yan Dorn 
immediately ordered the occupation of Port Hudson, a point selected for 
its eligibility of defence, and for its capacity for ofl^nsivc annoyance of 
the enemy, established batteries, manned them with experienced gunners, 
and guarded them by an adequate supporting force, holding Baton Rouge, 
in the meanwhile, in menace. The eftect of these operations was the evac- 
uation of Baton Eouge by the enemy, and his disappearance from the 
Mississippi between the capital of Louisiana and Vicksburg. The results 
sought by the movement against Baton Eouge were thus, to a great 
extent, obtained. The Confederates held two points of the Mississippi- 
more than two hundred miles of distance intervening — unmolested by the 
enemy, and closed to him. The navigation of the Mississippi River, from 
the mouth of Red River to Yicksburg, was opened to our commerce, giving 
us also the important advantage of water connection, by the latter river, 
with the most important portion of the trans-Mississippi region, from which 
indispensable supplies were drawn. 



THE KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN. 

But while the Confederate situation on the Mississippi River was thus 
satisfactory. Gen. Bragg, who now commanded the whole Confedej-ate 
army of the West, in place of Gen. Beam-egard, was preparing for an im- 
portant campaign, the object of which was to relieve Western Tennessee 
and Alabama from the presence of the enemy by an advance against Ken- 
tucky, with possibly the ultimate object of capturing and holding Loui&- 



328 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ville on the Ohio, and occupying permanently the eastern portion of the 
State. 

In the hill of operations incident to the position of his army at Tupelo, 
after the successful evacuation of Corinth, Gen. Beauregard had sought to 
recuperate his health by a short respite from duty. He turned over the 
command to G-en. Bragg, with instructions looking to the preparation of 
the army for the field at once on his return, which he anticipated would 
be in three weeks. But no sooner had President Davis heard of this step, 
than he telegraphed Gen. Bragg to assume permanent command — taking 
the opportunity to inflict upon Gen. Beauregard a mark of his displeasure, 
and in fact to encourage the curious report in Richmond that he had be- 
come insane, and was no longer fitted for a command. 

Gen. Bragg's expedition was preceded by extended raids of Morgan and 
Forrest into Kentucky and Tennessee. Tlie former, who had at first at- 
tracted attention as a captain of irregular cavalry, and was now a brigadier- 
general in the Confederate service, in the month of July, with a force num- 
bering less than two entire regiments of cavalry, penetrated the State of 
Kentucky, passed through seventeen towns, destroyed millions of dollars 
worth of United States property, and returned to Tennessee with a loss in 
all his engagements of not more than ninety men in killed, wounded, and 
missing. 

The campaign of Gen. Bragg was to take place amid intricate and 
formidable combinations of the enemy. In tlie country west of the Alle- 
ghany the Federal Government had prepared an extensive programme of 
operations. In the south. Gen. Butler occupied ITew Orleans, whilst 
Admirals Farragut and Porter guarded the Lower Mississippi, and bom- 
barded Yicksburg. Commanding the Army of Tennessee, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Corinth, with his advance as far south as Holly Springs and 
his right at Memphis, was Gen. Grant, with Gens. Sherman, Rosecrans, 
and McClernand under his command. Further east was the Federal 
Gen. Mitchell, between Corinth and Chattanooga, opposed to a small force 
under Gen. Adams ; whilst threatening Eastern Tennessee, was Buell's 
army, and occupying Cumberland Gap, was Gen. Morgan. 

Early in August four divisions of Bragg's command were concentrated 
near Chattanooga, and awaited the arrival of the artillery, cavalry, and 
baggage train, which necessarily moved across the country by land. A 
conference was held here with Gen. Kirby Smith, commanding the De- 
partment of East Tennessee ; and it was soon determined that all his force 
should be used to operate upon the enemy's left at Cumberland Gap, and 
he was requested to confer with Brig.-Gen. Humphrey Marshall, command- 
ing in Southwestern Yirginia, with whom he was already in correspond- 
ence, to ser'ure' his co-operation also in the movement. 

After returning to I\Jioxville, Gen. Smith asked for further assistance ; 



BATTLE OF KICHMOND. 329 

and two fine brigades, under Brig.-Gen. P. R. Cleburne and Col. Preston 
Smith were sent to him, in addition to the division which had gone from 
Tupelo. The remainder of Bragg's immediate command, the Army of the 
Mississippi, divided between Maj.-Gen. Polk and Hardee, made every 
preparation, and awaited only its baggage train and artillery to cross the 
Tennessee River, and enter upon its arduous and perilous campaign over 
the mountains dividing East and Middle Tennessee. 

The movement of the artillery and wagons across the mountain region 
of North Alabama having been successfully accomplished, late in August, 
Bragg commenced crossing the river at Chattanooga, with very limited 
means. The enemy, with a largely superiour force, occupied the lines of 
the railroads from Decatur to Bridgeport, Alabama, from Decatur to Nash- 
ville, and from Nashville to Stevenson, with large detached commands at 
McMinnville and Cumberland Gap. Having crossed the river at Chatta- 
nooga, the column took up its line of march on the 28th August, over 
Waldron's Ridge and the Cumberland Mountain for Middle Tennessee. 
Gen. Kirby Smith had already successfully passed through Northeastern 
Tennessee, and gained the rear of Cumberland Gap, held by the enemy in 
strong force well fortified. 

Leaving a sufficient force to hold the enemy in observation, his dis- 
lodgment being considered impracticable, Smith moved, as authorized, 
with the remainder of his command, on Lexington, Kentucky. This rich 
country, full of supplies so necessary to us, was represented to be occupied 
by a force which could make but feeble resistance. Hurrying forward by 
forced marches through a wild and mountainous country, the Confederates 
appeared in front of the town of Richmond on the 29tli of August. 



BATTLE OF KICHMOND. 

Gen. Cleburne's division, which was in advance, came uj)on the enemy's 
advance about six miles from Richmond, early in the day, and drove it 
from the field, before the remainder of the column was brought into action. 

Falling back about three miles and a half, and receiving reinforcements, 
the enemy again made a stand, and were again driven from the field in 
confusion. Gen. Smith did not pursue rapidly, and the enemy formed his 
line of battle in the outskirts of Richmond, his forces having swelled to the 
number of ten thousand men. Gen. Nelson commanding. 

The enemy's centre and left was here attacked by Preston Smith's 
division, while Churchill, with a brigade, moved to the left. Under the 
combined attack, the Federals were utterly routed, and retreated in terrible 
confusion. A detachment of Confederate cavalry came in upon tlieir 
Qank, and scattered tlieiji in all directions, capturing all their artillery 



330 THE LOST CAUSE. 

and trains. Not a regiment escaped in order. In the last engagement we 
took prisoners from thirteen regiments. Our loss, killed and wonnded, 
was about four hundred ; that of the enemy over one thousand, and his 
prisoners about five thousand. The immediate fruits of the victory were 
nine pieces of artillery, some ten thousand small arms, and large quantities 
of supplies. 

Pushing forward from Richmond, the Confederate force entered Lex- 
ington on the 2d September, and Frankfort on the 17th, and was thus in a 
position to threaten either Cincinnati, about eighty miles, or Louisville, 
about fifty miles distant. 

The movement of Kirby Smith made it necessary for Gen. Bragg to 
intercept Gen. Buell, now rapidly moving towards Nashville, or to move 
towards the right, so as to secure a junction with Smith when necessary. 
O-n reaching Middle Tennessee, it was found that the enemy's main force, 
by use of railroads and good turnpikes, had concentrated in Nashville, and 
was strongly fortified. With a heavy demonstration against this position, 
Bragg's force was thrown rapidly to Glasgow, reaching that point the 13th 
of September, before any portion of the enemy passed Bowling Green. 
As soon as the movement was discovered, the enemy moved in haste by 
rail and turnpike, but reached Bowling Green only in time to find the 
Confederates had seized and now held both roads near Cave City. 

So far the Confederate movements in Kentucky were a decided success, 
and promised the most important results. The enemy's communications 
were severed, and his forces separated, whilst our own connections were 
secured. Without firing a gun, we had also compelled the evacuation of 
all Northern Alabama and Middle Tennessee, south of the Cumberland. 
On the 12th September, Bragg sent a fulsome despatch to Richmond, 
greatly exciting the hopes of the Government there. He telegraphed : 
" My advance will be in Glasgow to-day, and I shall be with them to- 
morrow ; my whole force will be there on the 14:th. We shall then be 
between Buell and Kirby Smith, for which I have been struggling. The 
troops are in good tone and condition, somewhat footsore and tired, but 
cheerful. They have submitted most heroically to privations and hard- 
ships, and have maintained their reputation for discipline. Our greatest 
want has been breadstuffs, but we shall be in a plentiful country at Glas- 
gow and beyond. With arms we can, not only clear Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky, but I confidently trust, liold them hoth. Gen. Buell, with the 
larger portion of his army, is concentrating at Bowling Green. From 
Glasgow we can examine him and decide on the future." 

Gen. Bragg had a political object in invading Kentucky, which was to 
afford a rallying point for what he believed to be the Secession sentiment 
of the State. From his headquarters at Glasgow he issued a proclamation, 
informing the people of Kentucky that he had come with the Confederate 



CENSURE OF GEN. BRAGG. 331 

army of the West to ofl'er them an opportunity to free themselves from the 
tyranny of a despotic ruler. They came not as conquerours or despoilers, 
but to restore to them the liberties of which they had been deprived by a 
cruel and relentless foe ; to guaranty to all the sanctity of their homes and 
altars, to punish with a rod of iron the despoilers of their peace, and to 
avenge the cowardly insults to their women. 

On the 17th September, the Federal garrison at Mumfordsville surren- 
dered to Gen. Bragg's advanced divisions. Hardee's wing moved by Cave 
City, direct upon Mumfordsville, and Pollv, by another road, crossed tbo 
river some miles to the right, and gained the enemy's rear in the afternoon 
of the 16th. An immediate demand for the surrender of the garrison was 
made, and the next morning an unconditional surrender was obtained. 
We secured 4,267 prisoners, 10 pieces of artillery, 5,000 small arms, and 
a proportional quantity of ammunition, horses, mules, and military stores. 

Bragg's whole army was now on the road between Nashville and 
Louisville — the road by which Buell would be forced to march if he sought 
to interpose his army between tlie Confederates and the Ohio. It was 
apparently an excellent opportunity of striking not only a military but a 
political blow against the Federal cause in Kentucky. Bragg might press 
on, and, in conjunction with Kirby Smith, capture Louisville, or he might, 
with equal forces, meet Buell in the field, and force him back to Kashville. 
He adopted neither course. After the success of Mumfordsville, he suf- 
fered Buell and his wagon trains to pass between him and the Ohio River, 
almost within sight of his hues, while he marched away to Bardstown, and 
thence to Frankfort. Thus Buell entered Louisville, and Gen. Morgan, 
who had, by Kirby Smith's advance, been cut off with his detachment at 
Cumberland Gap, efiected his retreat to Cincinnati ; the first road between 
ISTashville and Louisville having been left open by Bragg's march to Frank- 
fort from the west, the second between Cumberland Gap and Nashville by 
Kirby Smith's march to the same point from the east, the great oppor- 
tunity of the Kentucky campaign was lost, and the Federals were able to 
resume the offensive in that State. 

The remarkable failure of Gen. Bragg to deliver battle at Mumfords- 
ville was the subject of much censure and criticism, which never obtained 
any reply from him but a weak and insufficient explanation in his official 
report. He there alleged that his movement towards Bardstown was to 
procure subsistence ; that his army was reduced to three days' rations, and 
that " a serious engagement would not fail, whatever its results, to materi- 
ally cripple him." 

Gen. Polk, left at Bardstown in command, was directed by Gen. Bragg, 
if pressed by a force too large to justify his giving battle, to fall back in 
the direction of the new depot, near Bryantsville, in front of which it was 
proposed to concentrate for action. Arriving in Lexington on the 1st 



332 THE LOST CAUSE. 

October, Gen. Bragg met the Provisional Governor of the State, who had 
previously been invited to accompany him, and arranged for his installa- 
tion at the Capitol on the 4th. The available forces of Kirby Smith, just 
returned to Lexington, were ordered immediately to Frankfort. Learning 
of a heavy movement of the enemy from Louisville, Gen. Bragg ordered 
Polk, " to move from Bardstown with his whole available force, by way 
of Bloomfield towards Frankfort, to strike the enemy in flank and rear," 
and informed him that Smith would attack in front. 

The plan of battle, however, was disarranged, as Polk, after a council 
of his officers, decided not to risk the attack, but to move as originally in- 
structed by Bragg towards Harrodsburg. Proceeding rapidly to that point 
himelf, Gen. Bragg was met there by Polk on the 6th of October, with the 
head of the column which had marched from Bardstown on the 3d. It 
was now determined to concentrate all the forces in front of Lexington, 
and to make a battle there. But before this order was put in full opera- 
tion, information was received that the enemy, in limited force, was press- 
ing upon Gen. Hardee at Perryville ; that he was nowhere concentrated 
against us, but was moving by separate columns ; his right near Lebanon, 
a corps in front of Perryville, and his left, two entire corps, extending by 
way of Macksville to Frankfort, a line of at least sixty miles. 

"Written orders were given to Gen. Polk to move Cheatham's division, 
now at Harrodsburg, back to Perryville, and to proceed to that point him- 
self, " attack the enemy immediately, rout him, and then move rapidly to 
join Maj.-Gen. Smith," as before ordered ; and it was added, " No time 
should be lost in this movement." Meanwhile, during the same day. Gen. 
Bragg had received repeated and urgent applications from Gen. Smith 
(near Frankfort) by express, representing the enemy to be in strong force 
in his immediate front, and earnestly asking for reinforcements. Accord- 
singly, "Withers' division had been detached and sent to him, and was far 
on the way thither at the time when the movement to Perryville was 
ordered. 

BATTLE OF PEEEYVILLE. 

It thus happened that by misapprehension, Bragg had made an unfor- 
tunate distribution of his forces, and deceived as to the real strength of the 
enemy in the vicinity of Perryville, was forced to give battle there at seri- 
ous disadvantage. Polk arrived at Perryville with Cheatham's division 
before midnight of the 7th, and the troops were placed by Gen. Hardee in 
the line of battle previously established. Our forces now in this position 
coniiisted of three divisions of infantry, about 14,500 — and two small 
brigades of cavalry, about 1,500 strong. 

It was past noon of the 8th October when the action commenced. It 



BRAGG's EETEEAT FEOM KENTUCKY. 333 

was fought by our troops with a gallantry and persistent determination to 
conquer, which the enemy could not resist ; and though he was largely 
more than two to our one, he was driven from the field with terrible loss. 
Night closed the operation just as a thu*d corps of the enemy threw the 
head of its columns against our left flank. We had entire possession of 
the battle-field, with thousands of the enemy's killed and wounded, several 
batteries of artillery, and six hundred prisoners. 

In the progress of the engagement, we had advanced so far as to expose 
our left flank to the third corps under McOook, just arrived from the direc- 
tion of Lebanon. Gen. Bragg, therefore, caused our line, which rested 
upon the field till midnight, to fall back to its original position. 

Assured that the enemy had concentrated his three corps against him, 
and finding that his loss had already been quite heavy in the unequal con- 
test against the two corps under Crittenden and Gilbert, Gen. Bragg gave 
the order to fall back at daylight on Harrodsburg, and sent instructions to 
Smith to move his command to form a junction with him, at that place. 
Thence, on the 11th, the whole force was retired upon Bryantsville. 

Gen. Bragg was now no longer able to attack and rout an enemy 
largely superiour in numbers ; and to evacuate Kentucky had become an 
imperative necessity. The season of autumnal rains was approaching ; 
the rough and uneven roads leading over the stupendous mountains of 
Eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, to and through Cumberland Gap, would 
then become utterly impassable to an army. Should Bragg remain till 
then, and meet with a reverse, his army would be lost. Accordingly all 
necessary arrangements were made, and the troops put in motion by two 
columns, under Polk and Smith, on the 13th October for Cumberland Gap. 
After a rapid march, with some privations in the absence of baggage 
trains, which had been sent ahead, the Confederate forces passed the Gap 
with immaterial loss from the 19th to the 24th of October. 

This retreat of Bragg was certainly a sore disappointment to the hopes 
which his first movements in Kentucky had occasioned and his sensational 
despatches had unduly excited. His campaign was long a theme of vio- 
lent criticism in the Confederacy. The detachment of Kirby Smith and 
tlie operation on difibrent lines in Kentucky ; the loss of the opportunity 
at Mumfordsville ; and the failure to assemble all the Confederates in the 
field at Perryville, were pointed out as so many errom's in the campaign. 
But the popular mind in criticising military operations is too prone to for 
get what is accomplished, while pointing out what might have been a1/- 
tempted. The Kentucky campaign was in a great measure a Confederate 
success. Though compelled to yield a portion of the valuable territory 
from which we had driven the enemy, the fi'uits of the campaign were 
large. With a force enabling us at no time to put more than forty thou- 
sand men, of all arms, and in all places in battle, we had redeemed North 



334 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Alabama and Middle Tennessee, and liad recovered possession of Cumber- 
land Gap, the gateway to the heart of the Confederacy. "We had killed, 
wounded, and captured no less than twenty-five thousand of the enemy ; 
taken over thirty pieces of artillery, seventeen thousand small arms, some 
two million cartridges for the same ; destroyed some hundreds of wagons, 
and brought off several hundred more, with their teams and harness com- 
plete ; replaced our jaded cavalry horses by a fine mount ; lived two months 
upon supplies wrested from the enemy's possession ; secm-ed material to 
clothe the army ; and, finally, secured subsistence from the redeemed 
country to support not only Bragg's army, but also large forces in other 
parts of the Confederacy, In four weeks after passing Cumberland Gap, 
Bragg's army was found, with serried ranks, in front of the enemy at Nash- 
ville ; better organized, better disciplined, better clothed and fed, in better 
health and tone, and in larger numbers than when it entered on the cam- 
paign, though it had made a march at least three times as long as that of 
the enemy in reaching the same point, and was moreover entirely self- 
sustained. 



OPEKATIONS IN THE SOUTHWEST. — BATTLE OF COEINTH. 

When Gen. Bragg moved into Kentucky, he left to Yan Dorn and 
Price the enemy in West Tennessee. These orders were however changed, 
and Price was directed to follow Rosecrans across the Tennessee Kiver 
into Middle Tennessee, whither it was then supposed he had gone. To 
make a demonstration in favour of Price, Gen. Van Dorn marched his 
whole command on the 20th day of September to within seven miles of 
Bolivar, driving three brigades of the enemy back to that place, and 
forcing the return from Corinth of one division, which had been sent there 
to strengthen Grant's army. 

Gen. Price, in obedience to his orders, marched in the direction of 
luka, to cross the Tennessee, but was not long in discovering that Rose 
crans had not crossed that stream. This officer, in connection with Grant, 
attacked him on the 19th day of September, and compelled him to fall 
back towards Baldwin, on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. On the 25th 
Yan Dorn received a despatch, by courier, from Price, stating that he 
was at Baldwin, and was then ready to join Avith his forces in an attack on 
Corinth, as had been previously suggested. The forces met at Ripley, on 
the 28tli September, according to agreement, and marched the next morn- 
ing towards Pocahontas, which place w^as reached on the 1st October. 

The disposition of the enemy's forces at this time was as follows : 
Sherman, at Memphis, with about six thousand men ; Hurlburt, afterwards 
Ordj at Bolivar, with about eight thousand ; Grant (headquarters at Jack 



J 



BATTLE OF COEmTH. 335 

Bon), with about three thousand ; Rosecrans at Corinth, with about fifteen 
thousand, together witli the following outposts, viz. : Rienzi, twenty-five 
hundred ; Burnsville, Jacinto, and luka, about six thousand ; at important 
bridges, and on garrison duty, about two or three thousand, making in the 
aggregate about forty-two thousand (42,000) men in West Tennessee. 
Memphis, Jackson, Bolivar, and Corinth were fortified, the works mount- 
ing siege guns, the outposts slightly fortified, having field pieces. Mem- 
phis, Bolivar, and Corinth are in the arc of a circle, the chord of which, 
from Memphis to Corinth, makes an angle with a due east line about fifteen 
degrees south. Bolivar is about equi-distant from Memphis and Corinth, 
somewhat nearer the latter, and is at the intersection of the Ilatchie River 
and the Mississippi Central and Ohio Railroad. 

It was a situation in which the enemy could scarcely determine at 
what point the Confederates would make their principal attack. In the 
event of operations being conducted against Bolivar, Rosecrans was pre- 
pared to fall on the Confederate right rear, whilst if Corinth should be at- 
tacked, a similar duty would devolve on the garrison of Bolivar. 

Gen. Van Dorn determined to attempt Corinth. He had a reasonable 
hope of success. Field returns at Ripley showed his strength to be about 
twenty-two thousand men. Rosecrans at Corinth had about fifteen thou- 
sand, with about eight thousand additional men at outposts, from twelve 
to fifteen miles distant. He might surprise him, and carry the place be- 
fore these troops could be brought in. Yan Dorn therefore marched 
towards Pocahontas, threatening Bolivar, then turned suddenly across the 
Hatcliie and Tuscumbia, and on the morning of the 3d October, attacked 
Corinth without hesitation, and did surprise that place before the outpost 
garrisons were called in. 

Rosecrans' forces occupied a position outside the defences of the town, 
three divisions forming the first two lines, and one division slightly in rear 
as a neserve. He was anxious to retire slowly within the inner line of 
works, and gave orders to that efi'ect ; but Price's troops, fiushed with the 
excitement of an attack, and anxious to wipe out the recollection of their 
repulse at luka, advanced rapidly, and pressed hai'd on the Federal centre, 
capturing two guns from Davies' division, and driving the Federals within 
their inner line of redoubts. 

Gen. Yan Dorn anticipated an easy success on the following morning, 
and telegraphed to Richmond the aimouncement of a great victory. It 
would seem that he was entirely unaware of the strength of the enemy's 
works at Corinth, and of the trial which yet remained for the courage and 
devotion of his troops. 

The Confederate plan of battle for the next day was, that Price should 
open with a large battery of artillery, and then attack in force with his 
left, and that while thus engaged, Lovell's division should press forward, 



336 THE LOST CAUSE. 

and attack witli vigour ou our right. Gen. Hebert, wlio commanded a 
dirision on the left, Tvas to lead in the attack. Dajlight came, and there 
was no attack on the left. Of this faihu'e to execute his orders, Gen. Yan 
Dorn says, in his official report : " A staff officer was sent to Hebert to 
inquire the cause. That officer could not be found. Another messenger 
was sent, and a third ; and about seven o'clock Gen. Hebert came to my 
headquarters, and reported sick." Gen. Price then put Brig.-Gen. Green 
in command of the left wing ; and it was eight o'clock before the proper 
dispositions for the attack at this point were made. In the mean time, the 
centre, held by Mamy's division, became engaged with the enemy's sharp- 
shooters, and the battle was brought on, and extended along the whole 
centre and left wing. One brigade after another went gallantly into the 
action, and, pushing forward through direct and cross-fire, over every ob- 
stacle, reached Corinth, and planted their colom's on the last stronghold 
of the enemy. A hand to hand contest was being enacted in the very 
yard of Gen. Rosecrans' headquarters, and in the streets of the town. 
The enemy was followed and driven from house to house with great 
slaughter. In the town were batteries in mask, supported by heavy re- 
serves, behind which the retreating enemy took shelter, and which opened 
upon our troops a most destructive fire at short range. The heavy guns 
of College Hill — the enemy's most important work — were for a moment 
silenced, and all seemed about to be ended, when a heavy fire from fresh 
troops from luka, Bm-nsville, and Rienzi, that had succeeded in reaching 
Corinth in time, poured into our thinned ranks. 

Our troops gave way. They were pushed down College Hill, and 
followed by the enemy through the woods and over the ground they had 
gained by such desperate courage. At the very time the day was lost, 
Lowell's division was advancing, and was on the point of assaulting the 
enemy's works, when he received orders to throw one of his brigades 
(Yillepigues') rapidly to the centre, to cover the broken ranks thrown 
back from Corinth. The movement was well executed, and the enemy 
did not dare to press his success. 

The next day it was determined by Yan Dorn to fall back towards 
Eipley and Oxford, and thus again take position behind the lagoons and 
swamps of Mississippi. The movement was accomplished with but little 
molestation from the enemy, beyond an affair in crossing the Hatchie, in 
wliich Gen. Ord, who commanded the enemy's advance, was held in check 
and pimished. The following was found to be onr loss in the severest con- 
flicts with the enemy, and on the march to and from Corinth, viz. : killed, 
59^! ; wounded, 2,162 ; prisoners and missing, 2,102. One piece of artil- 
lery was driven in the night by a mistake into the enemy's lines, and cap- 
tured. Four pieces were taken at the Hatchie bridge, the horses being 
shot. Two pieces of artillery were captured from the enemy at Corinth 



EE8ULT8 OF THE AUTUMN CAMPAIGNS OF 1862. 337 

by Gen. Lovell's division, one of which was brought off. Five pieces were 
also taken by Gen. Price's corps, two of which were brought off — thus 
resulting in a loss to ns of only two pieces. The enemy's loss in killed 
and wounded, by his own account, was 2,127. We took over three 
hundred prisoners. 

Tlie retreat from Corinth was not a rout. But the engagement there 
was a serious disaster to the Confederates, and cost Van Dorn his com- 
mand ; censured as he was for having carried his men against works, the 
strength of which he had underrated, and then having failed to make 
proper combinations in the attack. This event may be said to have closed 
for some time the campaign in the West. It had not completed all the 
expectations of the Southern public. It is true that the country between 
Nashville and Chattanooga was re-occupied by the Confederate forces ; 
but the decisive event of the campaign was the retreat from Kentucky, 
and as public expectation in the South had been disappointed when Lee 
retired across the Potomac, so did it experience a similar feeling when it 
was known that Bragg had retreated through the Cumberland Mountains. 

These were the two turning-points of the autumn campaigns of 1862. 
Whatever the territorial results of these campaigns, their moral effect was 
great, and the position of the Confederates was now very different from 
what it had been in the early part of the year. The glory of their arms 
now attracted the attention of the world. They had carried their arms 
from Chattanooga to Louisville, and, although forced to retire, had proved 
that the subjugation of the West was a task which the enemy had only 
commenced. They had raised the siege of Richmond, threatened Wash- 
ington, and beaten the enemy back in that quarter to what hiid been the 
threshold of the war. The London Times declared that the history of 
these campaigns comprised a hst of military achievements almost without 
parallel, and added : " Whatever may be the fate of the new nationality, 
or its subsequent claims to the respect of mankind, it will assuredly begin 
its career with a reputation for genius and valour which the most famous 
nations may envy." 

22 



CHAPTER XX. 

THR TWO MAIN THEATRES OF THE WAR. — OPERATIOXS IN VIRGINIA. — BATTLE OF FREDEBIOKft- 
BUEG. PEELIMINAKT MOVEMENTS OF THE TWO ARMIES. — EXPEDITION OF STUARt's CAV- 
ALRY INTO PENNSYLVANIA. — REMOVAL OF m'oLELLAN. — THE TRUE REASONS FOR IT. — 

GEN. BURNSIDE's " ON TO RICHMOND." HIS MOVEMENT TOWARDS FREDERICKSBURG. 

THE SURRENDER OF THE TOWN DEMANDED. IT IS ABANDONED BY THE CITIZEN-POPULA- 
TION. SORROWFUL SCENES. BURNSIDE FORCES THE PASSAGE QF THE RAPPAHANNOCK. — 

THE CONFEDERATE POSITION. — BURNSIDE's HOPE TO SURPRISE GEN. LEE. HOW DISAP- 
POINTED. THE CONFEDERATE LINE OF BATTLE. — THE ATTACK ON THE CONFEDERATE 

EIGHT. YOUNG PELHAm's GALLANTRY. THE CONFEDERATE RIGHT BROKEN. — THE BATTLE 

RESTORED. — INTEREST OF THE FIELD ON THE LEFT. — THE ATTACK ON MARYE's AND WIL- 

Lis' HILLS. — GALLANTRY OF THE FEDERALS. THEY MAKE SIX ATTACKS. A TERRIBLE 

SCENE OF CARNAGE. BURNSIDE's ARMY DRIVEN INTO FREDERICKSBURG. HIS APPALLING 

EXTREMITY. EXPECTATIONS IN RICHMOND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF HIS ARMY. — HE 

ESCAPES ACROSS THE RAPPAHANNOCK. GEN. LEE's OWN EXPLANATION OF HIS FAILURE 

TO FOLLOW UP HIS VICTORY. — COMPARATIVE LOSSES IN THE BATTLE. — DEATH OF GENS. 
GREGG AND COBB. — GEN. LEE's SENTIMENT WITH RESPECT TO THE OBJECTS OF THE WAR. 

OPERATIONS IN TENNESSEE. BATTLE OF MURFREESBORO'. THE SITUATION IN THB 

WEST. — THE LINES IN TENNESSEE AND MISSISSIPPI. — ROSECEANS' ADVANCE FROM NASH- 
VILLE. — CONFLICTING STATEMENTS OF HIS FORCE. — POSITION OF GEN. BRAGG's ARMY 
AEOUND MURFREESBORO'. BRAGG ANTICIPATES THE FEDERAL ATTACK. HARDEE COM- 
MENCES THE BATTLE. HE DRIVES THE ENTIRE EIGHT WING OF THE FEDERALS. DESPK- 

EATE SITUATION OF ROSECRAN8. HIS SANG-FROID. HE DEVELOPES A NEW LINE OF BAT- 
TLE. — THE CONFEDERATES RENEW THE ATTACK. HOW BRAGG LOST AN OPPORTUNITY. — 

SPLENDID CHARGE OF THE CONFEDERATES. THE DAY UNDECIDED, BUT THE ADVANTAGE 

•WITH THE CONFEDERATES. — BRAGg's " HAPPY NEW YEAR," BRECKINRIDGE ATTEMPTS TO 

DISLODGE THE ENEMY. — " THE BLOODY CROSSING OF STONE RIVER." REPULSE OF BRECK- 
INRIDGE. WHY BRAGG DETERMINED TO RETREAT. THE RESULTS OF THE BATTLE OF MUR- 
FREESBORO' IN FAVOUR OF THE CONFEDERATES. — A PECULIARITY OF GEN. BRAGG. — HIS 

ELOQUENT TRIBUTE TO THE PRIVATE SOLDIER OF THE CONFEDERACY. OPERATIONS IN THB 

TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. — THE CAMPAIGN WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI FEEBLE AND IRREGULAR. — 

GEN. HINDMAN's COMMAND. — HIS EXTRAVAGANT ADDRESS TO HIS SOLDIERS. BATTIE OP 

PRAIRIE GROVE. HINDMAN's FIRST SUCCESS AND UNFORTUNATE DELAY. HIS BLUNDERS 

AND EXTRAORDINARY RETREAT. — CONDITION OF THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI COUNTRY. — HIND- 

MAn's " GOVERNMENT AD INTERIM." HIS DESPOTIC ORDERS. AN EXTRAORDINARY LIST 

OF OUTRAGES. — VIRTUE AND FIDELITY OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES WEST OF THE MlSSIfl- 
8IPPI RIVER. 









/ ^ 



raz 



BATTLE OF IKEDEKICKSBUKG. 339 



About the close of the year 1862, two heavy battles were fought on tho 
two main theatres of the war, Yirginia and Tennessee, and were the great 
topics of the period referred to. 



OPERATIONS IN VIKGINIA. — BATTLE OF FREDEEICKSBUKG. 

After Lee's retreat into Virginia, McClellan appeared to be concen- 
trating in and near Harper's Ferry, but made no forward movement. On 
the Gth October President Lincoln had ordered an immediate advance, 
recommending that McClellan should take the interiour line between 
Washington and Lee's forces, and make an early battle. McClellan hesi- 
tated, and seemed disposed to spend time in complaints of inadequate sup- 
plies, and in incessant demands for reinforcements. Meanwhile, to ascer- 
tain the position and designs of the enemy, Gen. Lee ordered the famous 
cavalry commander Gen. Stuart to cross the Potomac above Williamsport, 
to reconnoitre the Federal positions, and, if practicable, to enter Pennsyl- 
vania, and do all in his power to impede and embarrass the military opera- 
tions of the enemy. The order was executed with skill, address, and 
courage. Gen. Stuart, with twelve or fifteen hundred cavaliy, passed 
through Maryland, occupied Chambersburg, and destroyed a large amount 
of public property, making the entire circuit of Gen. McClellan's army, 
and thwarting all tlie arrangements by which that commander had report- 
ed his capture certain. 

About the last of October, the Federal army began to incline eastward- 
ly from the mountains, moving in the direction of Warrenton. As soon as 
this intention developed itself, Longstreet's corps was moved across the 
Blue Ridge, and about tlie 3d of November, took position at Culpepper 
Court House, while Jackson advanced one of his divisions to the east side 
of the Blue Ridge. The enemy gradually concentrated about Warrenton, 
his cavalry being thrown forward beyond the Rappahaimock, in the direc- 
tion of Culpepper Court House, and occasionally skirmishing with our 
own, which was closely observing his movements. 

Here McClellan's hesitation and timidity were very evident. "Weeks 
wore on without any decided movement. The beautiful autumn weather 
had passed, without any demonstration of moment from the enemy, and 
now cold, bleak November whistled over the fields and mountains of Vir- 
ginia. But on the 5th of November there was an unusual sensation and 
stir in the Federal camp, for on that day a messenger arrived at Warren- 
ton, and delivered to McClellan an order to resign the command of the 
army to Gen. Burnside, and to report himself at Trenton in New Jersey. 
The order was unexpe^jted. Whatever the military demerits of McClellan, 



340 THE LOST CAUSE. 

it was inidoubtedly designed at Washington as a coup d'etat^ with reference 
to the fall elections of 1862, and influenced by the argument that a time 
\Then the Administration party was incurring defeat in the elections, it 
was dangerous to allow a political opponent to ])ossess the confidence and 
to hold the chief command of the main army. 

Gen. Burnside found at his command a splendid army. It was now 
divided into three grand divisions, each consisting of two corps, and com- 
manded by Gens. Sumner, Hooker, and Franklin. It was at once pro- 
posed by Burnside to move from AVarrenton to a new line of operations, 
and to make a campaign on the Lower Rappahannock. His plan was to 
march rapidly down the left bank of that river, to cross by means of pon- 
toons at Fredericksburg, and to advance on Kichmond by Hanover Court 
House. For this plan of operations against the Confederate capital, the 
advantages were claimed that it would avoid the necessity of the long lines 
of communication which would have to be held in case of a movement 
against Richmond by Gordonsville ; that, in fact, the Federal army, after 
arriving at Fredericksburg, would be at a point nearer to Richmond than 
it would be even if it should take Gordonsville ; and that it would all the 
time be as near Washington as would be the Confederates, thus covering 
that city and defeating the objection to the adoption of the line of the 
Peninsular campaign. 

On the 15th November, it was known by Gen. Lee Ibat the enemy 
was in motion towards the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, and one regi- 
ment of infantry, with a battery of light artillery, was sent to reinforce the 
garrison at Fredericksburg. On the 17th, it was ascertained that Sumner's 
corps had marched from Catlett's Station, in the direction of Falmouth, 
and information was also received that, on the 15th, some Federal gunboats 
and transports had entered Acquia Creek. This looked as if Fredericks- 
burg was again to be occupied, and McLaws' and Ransom's divisions, ac- 
companied by W. H. Lee's brigade of cavalry and Lane's battery, were 
ordered to proceed to that city. To ascertain more fully tlie movements of 
the enemy. Gen. Stuart was directed to cross the Rappahannock. On the 
morning of the 18th, he forced a passage at Warrenton Springs, in the face 
of a regiment of cavalry and three pieces of artillery, guarding the ford, 
and reached Warrenton soon after the last of the enemy's cohimn had left. 
The information he obtained contirjned the impression that the whole Fed- 
eral army, under Burnside, was moving towards Fredericksburg. On the 
morning of the 19th, therefore, the remainder of Longstreet's corps was 
put in motion for that point. 

It arrived there before any large body of the enemy had appeared. It 
is true that the Stafford Heights on the north bank of the river, were held 
by a Federal detachment many days ere the approach of the Confederate 
forces, but they had never attempted to cross over into the town. Ticket 



BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBUKG. 341 

firing was now constant along the river. But there were many wlio yet 
believed that Burnside had no serious intention of attacking, regarding his 
demonstration at the river as a harmless display of force to divert atten- 
tion from his real designs. 

Such surmise was soon banished from the mind. On the 21st it be- 
came apparent that Gen. Burnside was concentrating his whole army on 
the north side of the Rappahannock. On the same day, Gen. Sumner 
summoned the corporate authorities of Fredericksburg to surrender the 
place, and threatened, in case of refusal, to bombard the city at nine 
o'clock, next morning. The weather had been tempestuous for two days, 
and a storm was raging at the time of the summons. It was impossible to 
prevent the execution of the threat to shell the city, as it was completely 
exposed to the batteries on Stafford Hills, which were beyond our reach. 
Tlie city authorities were informed by Gen. Lee that while his forces would 
not use the place for military purposes, its occupation by the enemy would 
be resisted, and directions were given for the removal of the women and 
children as rapidly as possible. 

The threatened bombardment did not take place. But the inhabitants 
were advised to leave the town in view of the imminence of a collision be- 
tween the two armies, and almost the entire population, without a murmur 
abandoned their homes. The country around for miles was strewn with 
tents and rude shelters, where the women and children of the town had 
betaken themselves ; and along the roads, in the rude blasts of winter, 
wandered many of the poor without aught of worldly property beyond 
some scanty packs of food and clothing borne on their backs. 

Gen. Burnside now commenced his preparations to force the passage 
of the Rappahannock and advance upon Richmond. Lee's left wing, un- 
der Jackson, bad not yet arrived, although it was rapidly pushing forward. 
On his arrival, the disposition of the Confederate forces was soon made. 
D. H. Hill's division was stationed near Port Royal, and the rest of Jack- 
son's corps so disposed as to support Hill or Longstreet, as occasion might 
require. Our lines in the vicinity of Fredericksburg extended from the 
river about a mile and a half above, along the range of hills in the rear of 
the city to the Richmond Railroad. As these hills were commanded by 
the opposite heights, in possession of the enemy, earthworks were con 
fitructed upon their crests, at the most eligible positions for artillery. 

On the Stafford Heights tlie enemy had an array of military force the 
most brilliant and magniticent of modern times. Burnside's total numeri- 
cal strength was about one iiundred and fifty thousand men. A more than 
ordinary powerful artillery was attached to the army, of which no less 
than ons hundred and forty-three guns, overlooking the town of Fredericks- 
burg, commanded the course of the river and the opposite bank. The 
Confedcrdtes numbered about eighty thousand nen. They were drawn 



342 THE LOST CAUSE. 

up along tlie heights in the rear of Fredericksburg, which, retiring ir a 
semi-circle from the river, embrace within their arms a plain six miles in 
length, and from two to three in depth. It seemed as if nature had pre- 
pared here an arena for one of the grandest conflicts of arms that had yet 
been witnessed in the war. The landscape, stretching from the hills to the 
river, was like an amphitheatre ; the intrenched Confederates holding an 
upper tier of seats, and the stage being the valley in which were placed the 
red-brick buildings of Fredericksburg. Outside of the town a few houses 
were scattered here and there over the scene, and the leafless woods added 
to the bleak aspect of the country. Small detachments of the Confederate 
forces were quartered in the deserted bouses, from which rose few and 
feeble clouds of smoke ; while on the banks of the river the active picket 
walked his post through piercing winds and sleet and rain. 

Before dawn, on the lltli December, our signal guns announced that 
the enemy was in motion. About two, a. m., he commenced preparations 
to throw bridges over the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, and one 
about a mile and a quarter below, near the mouth of Deep Hun. Two 
regiments of Barksdale's brigade, McLaws' division, the Seventeenth and 
Eighteenth Mississippi, guarded these points, the former, assisted by the 
Eighth Florida, of Anderson's division, being at the upper. The rest of 
the brigade, with the Third Georgia regiment, also of Anderson's division, 
was held in reserve in the city. From daybreak until four, p. m., the 
troops, sheltered behind the houses on the river bank, repelled the repeated 
efiforts of the enemy to lay his bridges opposite the town, driving back his 
M'orking parties, and their supports, with great slaughter. 

At the lower point of the river near Deep Run there was no such pro- 
tection. Here the enemy made a prodigious effort to lay his pontoons, 
and swarms of men could be seen moving to and fro with beams and boats. 
Our sharpshooters maintained an annoying fire, and for a moment the 
enemy retired. Then commenced a terrible cannonade, as more than a 
hundred guns were pointed at the city. Houses fell, timbers crashed, dust 
rose, flames ascentled, while there poured out from the city a stream of un- 
lucky citizens who had remained too long, or had screened themselves in 
hope of the enemy's speedy arrival. Unable to withstand the fire of the 
batteries and a superiour force of the enemy's infantr}^ on the river banks, 
our troops were withdrawn ; and soon loud cheers from the Federals an- 
nounced that the bridge was completed. Burnside's advance into Freder- 
icksburg was bravely resisted until dark. But Gen. Lee had accomplished 
the most important condition for a successful battle ; he had gained tho 
necessary time for the concentration of b.is forces. 

It had been Burnside's hope, by rapidly crossing the river to take Lee 
at a serious disadvantage. He had discovered that a large portion of the 
Confederate force had been thrown down the river, and it was his design 



BATTLE OF FEEDEKICKSBURG. 343 

to separate, by a vigorous attack, tlie forces on the river below from the 
forces behind and on the crest in the rear of Fredericksburg. But in this 
prospect he was disappointed. He found Lee in compact lines prepared to 
receive him; and availing himself of the dense fogs on the river, he con- 
tinued during tlie 12th December, to cross his men at and below Fredericks- 
burg very much at his leisure, and without material interruption. 

Our artillery could only be used with effect when the occasional clear- 
ing of the mist rendered the enemy's columns visible. His batteries on 
the Stafford Heights fired at intervals upon our position. Longstreet's 
corps constituted our left, with Anderson's division resting upon the river, 
Ransom's division supported the batteries on Marye's and Willis' Hills, at 
the foot of which Cobb's brigade, of McLaws' division, and the 24:tli JSTorth 
Carolina, of Eansom's brigade, were stationed, protected by a stone wall. 
The Washington Artillery, under Col. Walton, occupied the redoubts on 
the crest of Marye's Hill, and those on the heights to the right and left, 
were held by part of the reserve artillery, Col. E. P. Alexander's bat- 
talion, and the division batteries of Anderson, Ransom, and McLaws. 
A. P. Hill, of Jackson's corps, was posted between Longstreet's extreme 
right and Hamilton's Crossing, on the railroad. His front line, consisting 
of the brigades of Pender, Lane, and Archer, occupied the edge of a wood. 
Lieut.-Col. Walker, with fourteen pieces of artillery, was posted near the 
right, supported by two Virginia regiments. Early and Taliaferro's divi- 
sions composed Jackson's second line — D. H. Hill's division his reserve. 
Gen. Stuart, with two brigades of cavalry and his horse artillery, occupied 
the plain on Jackson's right, extending to Massaponax Creek. 

On the morning of the 13tli, the plain on which the Federal army lay, 
was still enveloped in fog, making it impossible to discern its ojDcrations. 
At an early hour the batteries on the heights of Stafford began to play 
upon Longstreet's position. In the intervals of the fire, noises from the 
valley and loud-toned commands told of marching and counter-marching 
in the fog and mists. The rattle of picket-firing on our right gave tokens- 
of the impending battle. All was feverish expectation. A little past nine 
o'clock the sim lifted the foggy veil from the valley, and there stood the 
Federal array, right, left, and centre, just on the point of moving. 

Dense masses appeared in front of A. P. Hill, stretching far up the 
river, in the direction of Fredericksburg. As they advanced, Maj. Pclham, 
of Stuart's horse artillery, wdio was stationed near the Port Royal road 
with one section, opened a rapid and well-directed enfilade fire, which 
arrested their progress. Four batteries immediately turned upon him, but 
he sustained their heavy fire with a courage that in half an hour made 
him one of the most famous names in the Confederacy. Thirty Federal 
cannon were striving in vain to silence him ; and yet the young artillerist 
— only twenty-two years of age — was firm as a rock, his unyielding courage 



344 THE LOST CAUSE. 

and composure under tlie deadliest fire making him for a time a spectacle 
for the whole field. 

Meanwhile the enemy extended his left down the Port Rojal road, ami 
hig numerous batteries opened with vigour upon Jackson's line. Eliciting 
no response, his infantry moved forward to seize the position occupied bj 
Lieut.-Col. Walker. The latter, reserving his fire until their line had ap- 
proached within less than eight hundred yards, opened upon it with such 
destructive efiect as to cause it to waver, and soon to retreat in confusion. 

About one, p. m., the main attack on the right began by a furious can- 
nonade, under cover of Avliich three compact lines of infantry advanced 
against Hill's front. They were received as before by our batteries, by 
whose fire they were momentarily checked, but soon recovering, they 
pressed forward, until coming within range of our infantry, the contest be- 
came fierce and bloody. Here at one time the enemy broke the Confed- 
erate line, turning the left of Archer and the right of Lane, But reinforce- 
ments from Jackson's second line were rapidly brought forward, and re- 
stored the battle. After a severe contest, the enemy was routed, driven 
from the woods ; and although largely reinforced, he was driven back, and 
pursued to the shelter of the railroad embankment. Here he was gallantly 
charged by the brigades of Hoke and Atkinson, and driven across the plain 
to his batteries. The repulse of the enemy on our right was now decisive, 
and the attack was not renewed, although his batteries kept up active fire 
at intervals, and sharpshooters skirmished along the front during the rest 
of the afternoon. 

While these events were transpiring on our right, the enemy, in formi- 
dable numbers, made repeated and desperate assaults on the left of our line. 
Here was fixed the chief interest of the field. Fresh divisions had crossed 
the river at Fredericksburg, and the mass of Barnside's army was now con- 
centrated in front of Longstreet's strong position. Strong columns of at- 
tack were formed under the withering fire of the Confederate batteiies to 
attack Marye's and Willis' Hills towering immediately in their front. All 
the batteries on the Stafford Heights directed, their fire upon the positions 
occupied by the Confederate artillery with a view to silence it, and cover 
the movement of the infantr}'. 

Our artillery did not reply to the furious cannonade. But as the 
masses of the enemy came forward — one immediately in front and one on 
each fiank of Marye's Hill — the Washington artillery corps poured into 
these dense lines of infantry a rapid and destructive fire. Still, the enemy, 
notwithstanding the havoc caused by our batteries, pressed on with great 
determination. His ranks were frequently broken ; but at last his lines 
had staggered within one hundred yards of the foot of the hill. At this 
time our infantry suddenly rose and poured such rapid volleys into them, 
that the advance was impeded by their own dead. As the colunms halted 



BATTLE OF FEEDERICKSBUEO. 345 

and btaggered and swayed or broke, our men from breastworks and rifle- 
pits, and from every imaginable place, were pouring into their bleeding 
masses showers of small shot. Jt was too much for human endurance. 
Six different attacks, or rather frantic dashes, were directed against the 
almost impregnable position of the foe. It was an exhibition of courage 
that was worthy of a better cause and deserved a better direction. It was 
no longer a scientific battle, but a wholesale slaughter of human beings. 
In vain Sumner pushed forward French, Hancock, and Howard ; each 
division was repulsed with terrible loss ; the Irish brigade advanced im- 
petuously, and almost perished witliin a short distance of the Confederate 
guns ; all was in vain ; and Gen. Bm-nside, who, two miles across the river, 
sat upon the heights, glass in hand, saw the successive defeat of each as- 
saulting column. When night closed in, the shattered masses of the enemy 
had disappeared in the town, leaving the fi.eld covered with dead and 
wounded. 

Bumside was now at an appalling extremity. His shattered army was 
cowering beneath the houses of Fredericksburg, with a river in its rear, 
which, though threaded by pontoon bridges, would have been impassable 
under the pressure of attack. The thought in Kichmond was that the time 
had at last come when the consequences of a great Confederate victory 
would be pursued, and its results completed ; and the public waited with 
impatience to hear that Gen. Lee had assumed the offensive, and despatched 
his crippled enemy on the banks of the river. The Korth trembled for the 
same result. One day might decide the fate of the large and yet mag- 
nificent remnants of Burnside's army ; they might be annihilated, or take 
the altei'native of capitulation ; and the great event might put a new aspect 
on the war^ which had so long lingered in the trail of wasted and unfruit- 
ful blood. Expectation was high in Richmond ; there was a keen impa- 
tience for the finishing blow. But in the midst of these feelings came the 
astounding news that two days had passed without any renewal of the 
battle on Gen. Lee's part, and that on the succeeding night Burnside had 
crossed the river without a single effort at interruption, and that a great 
Federal army, supposed to be in the jaws of destruction, was now quietly 
reorganizing in perfect security on the north bank of the river. 

Various excuses have been made for Gen. Lee's omission to assume the 
ofi'ensive, and realize the proper result of his victory at Fredericksburg. 
These excuses have mostly originated in the generosity of friends and ad- 
mirers. But the great commander himself, averse to all efforts of others 
to cover up any failure of his own, and insensible to the ofiers of misrepre- 
sentation made to him by flatterers, has nobly and candidly confessed his 
errour. In an official report he says : " The attack on the 13th had been 
BO easily repulsed, and by so small a part of our army, that it was not 
supposed the enemy would limit his effort to one attempt, which, in view 



346 THE LOST CAUSE. 

of the magnitude of his preparations, and the extent of his force, seemed 
to bo comparatively insignificant. Believing, therefore, that he would 
attack us, it was not deemed expedient to lose the advantages of our posi- 
tion, and expose the troops to the fire of his inaccessible batteries beyond 
the river, by advancing against him. But we were necessarily ignorant 
of the extent to which he had suffered, and only became aware of it, when, 
on the morning of the 16th, it was discovered that he had availed himself 
of the darkness of night, and the prevalence of a violent storm of wind and 
rain, to recross the river." 

The battle of Fredericksburg presented a disproportion of loss on tlie 
Federal and Confederate sides, such as no battle of the war had as yet ex- 
hibited. A great victory, measured by the list of casualties, had been ob- 
tained by the Confederates with a comparatively small loss. Gen. Burn- 
side, in his official report, stated: "Our killed amounts to 1,152, our 
wounded to about 9,000, and our prisoners to about YOO." A few days 
after he despatched : " On the authority of our medical director, the whole 
number of wounded is between six and seven thousand." Gen. Lee, in his 
oflicial despatch, writes : " Our loss during the entire operations, since the 
movements of tbe enemy began, amounts to about eighteen hundred killed 
and wounded." Among the killed were two conspicuous names — Brig.- 
Gen. Maxcy Gregg of South Carolina, and Brig.-Gen. Thomas R. R. Cobb 
of Georgia — men, who, aside from military merit, had earned the reputa- 
tion of statesmen, and had adorned the councils of the South by brilliant 
eloquence and chivalrous sentiment. " The country," wrote Gen. Lee, 
" consents to the sacrifice of such men as these, and the gallant soldiers 
who fell with them, only to secure the inestimable blessing they died to 
obtain." This sentiment was written when the cause of the Confederacy 
was above all earthly things in the minds of its people, and when the 
dying words of Gregg were commemorated like a phrase of antique hero- 
ism : " Tell the Governor of South Carolina I cheerfully yield my life for 
the independence of my State ! " 



OPERATIONS IN TENNESSEE. — BATTLE OF MUKFKEESBOEO. 

Our last notice of operations on the Western theatre of the war, left 
Gen. Bragg in front of ISTasliville. The bulk of his army had gone into 
camp at Murfreesboro, while the brigades of Forrest and "Wagner, about 
five thousand eftective cavalry, were absent, annoying Grant's rear in West 
Tennessee, and breaking the enemy's railroad communications in Northern 
Kentucky. The main Federal army now in Teimessee, under command of 
Gen. Ptosecrans, maintained itself with some difiiculty at Nashville and on 
the line of the Cumberland. It was only a portion of the enemy's forces 



BATTLE OF MURFKEESBORO. 347 

whicli threatened the Confederacy from the West ; for Grant was moving 
from West Tennessee into Mississippi, while a strong detached force under 
Sherman was organizing for a separate expedition down the Mississippi 
River against Vicksburg. The Confederate positions were the lines of tlic 
Tallahatchie River, the approaches by rail into Mississippi and the forti- 
fications at Vicksburg. Such was the situation in the West at the close 
of the year 1862, when Bragg confronted Rosecrans, and prepared for an 
important battle, likely to decide the fate of Tennessee. 

In the absence of Bragg's cavalry, Rosecrans determined to seize the 
opportunity for attack, and to advance from Nashville. He prepared to 
force the passage of Stone River north of Murfreesboro, and on the 26th 
December commenced to move his forces ; McCook, with three divisions, 
forming the right column, Thomas the centre with two divisions, and Crit- 
tenden the left with three divisions. T]ie total of this force has been 
officially stated by Rosecrans at about forty-seven thousand men ; but 
Gen. Bragg declares that from papers captured from the enemy in the 
subsequent battle, it was discovered that his strength was nearly, if not 
quite seventy thousand men, while we had on the field on the morning of 
the battle, less than thirty-five thousand men, of which thirty thousand 
were infantry and artillery. 

The Confederate army was collected in and around Murfreesboro ; 
Polk's corps and three brigades of Breckinridge's division holding the 
town. The three cavalry brigades of Wheeler, Wharton, and Pegram, 
occupied the entire front of our infantry, and covered all approaches within 
ten miles of Nashville. It was thus impossible that any movement of the 
enemy could take place without due notice being received at the Confed- 
erate headquarters. When it was known that he was advancing, prepara- 
tions were made to receive him ; the detached portion of Hardee's corps 
at Eagle ville was brought up ; and on the 2Sth December our main force 
of infantry and artillery was concentrated in front of Murfreesboro, whilst 
the cavalry, supported by three brigades of infantry and three batteries ot 
artillery, impeded the advance of the enemy by constant skirmishing and 
sudden, unexpected attacks. 

The whole force of the enemy was concentrated on and near the direct 
road on the west of Stone River. Crittenden's corps formed the left of the 
line, Thomas the centre, of which Negley's division was drawn up in ad- 
vance, and Rousseau's in reserve, and McCook's corps the right. The road 
and the river divided both armies into two wings. Tiie ground was favour- 
able to manoeuvre — large open fields, densely wooded tracts of cedar and 
thinner ones of oak ; the gentle swells of the land were scarcely increased by 
the banks of Stone River, which ran through the lines of both armies, was 
ford able at almost every point for infimtry, and at short intervals practi« 
cable for artillery. The Confederate line of battle was about nine miles in 



34:8 THE LOST CAUSE. 

length. Polk's corps, consisting of "Withers' and Cheatham's divisions, 
formed our left wing. Hardee's corps, consisting of Breckinridge's and 
Cleburne's divisions, with McCown's division, held in reserve on his i-ight 
flank, was formed on the east bank of the river, its left resting near the 
Nashville road, and its right extending towards the Lebanon pike. 

On the night of the 30th December both armies bivouacked at a distance 
not greater in some places than five hundred yards, the camp-fires of the two 
being within distinct view. Both commanders prepared to attack the next 
day. Rosecrans drew up an elaborate plan of battle, and expressed uneasi- 
ness at McCook's position on the right. By seven o'clock in the morning 
of the 31st December, the troops were preparing for the battle. 

But the enemy's attack had been anticipated. At the break of day on 
the cold and cloudy morning, Gen. Hardee gave the order to advance, and 
commenced the battle by a rapid and impetuous charge on McCook's posi- 
tion. The enemy here was taken completely by surprise ; general and 
stafF-ofticers were not mounted ; artillery horses not hitched, and infantry 
not formed. One of McCook's divisions, after a sharp but fruitless contest, 
was — to use the words of Gen. Rosecrans himself — " crumbled to pieces." 
Hardee continued to jjush the enemy, pursuing his victorious career for 
miles, while captured artillery, flying battalions, and hosts of prisoners, 
attested the rout. The entire right wing of Rosecrans was being driven in 
the greatest disorder, and it appeared that the day was already decided. 
McCook's corps was driven for six miles towards the centre. For hours 
continued the rapid movement of the noise of battle towards the north, 
and, at last, the streams of fugitives and stragglers passing towards the 
I^I^ashville road, and making tlieir way in the greatest disorder through the 
cane-brakes, convinced Rosecrans, of what had been before reported to 
him, that McCook's corps was utterly routed. The Federal commander 
was remarkable for self-possession and sang-froid. As report of disaster 
after disaster came to him, he remarked : " We will soon rectify it." He 
was incorrectly told that McCook was killed " We cannot help it," he 
replied ; " men who fight must be killed. Never mind ; let us fight this 
battle." It was a crisis in which such cool words were remarkable. It 
was now near noon, and Rosecrans had his right wing broken ; he had 
already lost twenty-eight pieces of cannon, and not less than five thousand 
prisoners ; and it was in sucli circumstances that he was to prepare a new 
disposition of his forces, and impart a new inspiration to dispute what re- 
mained of the day. 

A new line of battle was rapidly developed. Rousseau's division waa 
hurried forward from the centre, and Crittenden was ordered to abandon 
all idea of an advance, and to march as quickly as j^ossible two out of his 
three divisions to support the right wing. These movements were masked 
by immense cedar forests. The whole of the Federal right and centre waa 



BATTLE OF MUKFREE8B0K0. 349 

now drawn up nearly at right angles with the position it held in the morn- 
ing. The right of the left wing hekl the angle of high ground between 
the rail and river. Here the enemy massed liis artillery, and seemed to 
bid defiance to the hitherto victorious career of tlie Confederates. 

Finding that the enemy had concentrated such a force on Hardee's 
front as to check his further progress, Gen. Bragg sent orders for Breckin- 
ridge's division to move from the right to reinforce Polk ; but there was a 
considerable delay in carrying out this order, owing to a threat of an ad- 
vance on the Federal left, and a rumour of fresh forces appearing on the 
Lebanon pike. " These unfortunate misrepresentations," said Gen, Biagg, 
" on that part of the field which, with proper caution, could not have ex- 
isted, withheld from active operations three fine brigades until the enemy 
had succeeded in checking our progress, had re-established his lines, and 
had collected many of his broken battalions." 

Having settled the question that no movement was being made against 
our right, and none to be apprehended, Breckinridge was ordered to leave 
two brigades to support the battery on his side of Stone River — and with 
the remainder of the force to cross to the left, and report to Polk. By the 
time this could be accomplished it was too late to send this force to Har- 
dee's support, who was unable to make further progress, and he was 
directed to maintain his position. Polk was directed with these reinforce- 
ments to throw all the force he could collect upon the enemy's extreme 
left, and thereby either carry that strong point which had so far resisted 
us so successfully — or failing in that, at least to draw off from Hardee's front 
the formidable opposition there concentrated. The three brigades of Jack- 
son, Preston, and Adams were successively reported for their work. 

Upon this flank, his strongest defensive position resting on the river- 
bank, the enemy had concentrated not less than twenty pieces of artilleiy, 
masked almost from view, but covering an open space in front of several hun- 
dred yards, supported right and left and rear by heavy masses of infantry. 
A terrible trial awaited the devoted men who were to attack this position. 
As they pressed up to the edge of the cedar forest, and swarmed out into 
the open field, it was a grand scene. Every feature of it was keenly cut 
and clearly defined. The day was one of surpassing beauty. The gray 
suits of the Confederates dotted the dark line of the cedars ; presently they 
could be seen to thicken in order of battle, with the bright glitter of their 
steel flashir.g in the heavy green of the thicket. As they passed into 
the open field, the hostile array imparted sublimity to the spectacle. Great 
masses of troops moved steadily forward, careless of the batteries, which 
tore open tlieir ranks, and scattered them bleeding upon the soil. They 
marched through the destroying storm danntlessly. Two attempts wero 
made to carry the enemy's position. But each time the whole extent of 
their lines was engirdled with a belt of flame and smoke, and the ground 



35Q THE LOST CAUSE. 

Btrewn witli their dead. For two hours the battle raged with liorriblo 
slaughter, and neither side receded until near five o'clock. Tlien the 
nearly exhausted armies suspended operations for the night, excepting the 
jilay of a few batteries. 

It had been a desperate but undecided contest. The advantage was 
with the Confederates. They had driven the enemy's right almost upon 
his left, captured nearly one-third of his artillery, compelled him to change 
front under fire, and occupied that part of the field from which he had 
been driven in the morning. Rosecrans had shown a great power in 
handling troops, and had performed a manoeuvre requiring high qualitieB 
of generalship ; for he had successfully formed a new line in presence of 
an enemy and under his attacks. 

The next day — 1st January, 1863 — Gen. Bragg telegra2)hed to Rich- 
mond : " God has granted us a happy New Year." The exultation of the 
despatch was extravagant, and was certainly not justified by what ensued. 
The first of January passed without any important event. Breckinridge 
had been transferred to the right of Stone River to resume the command 
of that position, now held by two of his brigades. It was soon reported 
that no change had occurred, except the withdrawal of the enemy from the 
advanced position occupied by his left flank. Finding, upon further ex- 
amination, that this was the case, the right flank of Polk's corps was 
thrown forward to occupy the ground for which we had so obstinately con- 
tended the evening before. This shortened our lines considerably, and 
gave us possession of the centre of the battle-field, from which we gleaned 
the spoils and trophies throughout the day, and transferred them rapidly 
to the rear. 

On the 2d January, Yan Clove's division of the enemy's foi"ces was 
thrown across the river, and occupied the eminence from which Gen. 
Polk's line was commanded and enfiladed. The dislodgement of this force 
or the withdrawal of Polk's line was an evident necessity. The latter in- 
volved consequences not to be entertained. Orders were accordingly 
given for the concentration of the whole of Breckinridge's division in front 
of the position to be taken. An addition was made to his command of ten 
Napoleon guns, and the cavalry forces of Wharton and Pegram, about two 
thousand men, were ordered to join in the attack on his right. The in- 
btructions given to Breckinridge were to drive the enemy back, crown the 
hill, intrench his artillery, and hold the position. 

Tlie attack was made at 4 p. m. Yan Cleve's division gave way, re- 
tired in confusion across the river, and was closely followed by the Con- 
federates. The enemy however, had disposed his batteries on the hill on 
the west side of the river, and Negley's division was ordered up to meet 
the onset. The firing was terrific. In about half an hour the Confeder- 
ates lost two thouand men. Breckinridge's command was driven back in 



BATTLE OF MXTRFEEESBORO. 351 

considerable disorder ; bet the pursuit of the enemy was cheeked by An- 
derson's brigade of Mississippians, which was thrown forward from Polk's 
line, staggered the enemy, and sav«d all the guns not captured before its 
arrival. 

Next day the rain fell in torrents. Each General anticipated an attack 
from his opponent, and neither appeared willing to commence a new bat- 
tle. Meanwhile Bragg was deceived into the belief that the enemy was 
receiving reinforcements, and in view of the exhausted condition of his 
army, determined to withdraw from the unequal contest. In the night of 
the 3d January, the retreat was commenced without molestation from the 
enemy. The next day Rosecrans moved into Murfreesboro, and Bragg 
retired to Tullahoma, which, as a base of operations, and as a position of 
defence, offered great advantages. 

Tile occupation of Murfreesboro afforded the North some pretence of 
claiming a victory. But the position was of little imjDortance, and the 
works neither extensive nor strong. The actual results of the battle were 
in favour of the Confederates. Our loss exceeded ten thousand, nine 
thousand of whom were killed or wounded. As our offset to this loss, we 
had taken considerably over six thousand prisoners, and had captured over 
thirty pieces of cannon, sixty thousand stand of small arms, ambulances, 
mules, and horses, with a large amount of other valuable property, all of 
which was secured and appropriated to proper uses. Besides all this se- 
cured, we destroyed not less than eight hundred wagons, mostly laden with 
various articles, such as arms, ammunition, provisions, baggage, clothing, 
medicine, and hospital stores. We had lost only three pieces of artillery, 
all in Breckinridge's repulse. Rosecrans gave his loss in killed and 
wounded as 8,778. Of this estimate Gen. Bragg remarks : " One cor^DS, 
commanded by Maj.-Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden, whicli was least exposed 
.n the engagement, report over live thousand killed and wounded. As the 
enemy had two other corps, and a separate division, third of a corps, and 
:;avalry, his loss is safely estimated at three thousand killed and sixteen 
thousand wounded. Adding the six thousand two hundred and seventy- 
three prisoners, we have a total of twenty-five thousand two hundred and 
seventy-three." 

The battle of Murfreesboro was the subject of much criticism in the 
Confederacy, and the occasion of various commentaries. Gen. Bragg was 
famous for his profuse censure of his oflficers, and his ascription of every 
failure in his campaigns to the fault of some subordinate officer. He never 
wrote an official report without such unpleasant and suspicious element of 
recrimination in it. He made the battle of Murfreesboro a text of censure 
of his subordinates ; he declared that the remissness of Breckinridge, on 
the first day of action, checked Hardee's success, and made the victory in- 
complete. But he found in this terrible battle the occasion of a beautiful 



352 THE LOST CAUSE. 

and memorable tribute to the private soldier of the Confederacy. lie 
wrote : " To the private soldier a fair word of praise is due, and though it 
is so seldom given and so rarely expected, that it may be considered out 
of place, I cannot, in justice to myself, withhold the opinion ever enter- 
tained, and so often expressed during our struggle for independence. In 
the absence of instructions and discipline of our armies, and of the conli- 
dence which long associations produce between veterans, we have, in a 
great measure, to trust to the individuality and self-reliance of the private 
soldier. Without the incentive or the motive which controls the officer, 
who hopes to live in history, without the hope of reward, actuated only by 
a sense of duty and patriotism, he has in this great contest justly judged 
that the cause was his own, and gone into it witli a determination to con- 
quer or die, to be free or not to be at all. No encomium is too high, no 
honour too great for such a soldier. However much of credit and glory 
may be given, and probably justly given, to the leaders in the struggle, 
history will yet award the main honour, where it is due, to the private sol- 
dier, who, without hope of reward, and with no other incentive than a 
conscientiousness of rectitude, has encountered all the hardships, and has 
suffered all the privations. Well has it been said : The first monument 
our Confederacy raises, when our independence shall have been won, 
should be a lofty shaft, pure and spotless, bearing this inscription : ' To 
the unknown and unrecorded dead."* " 



OPERATIONS IN THE TKAN8-MISSISSIPPI. 

In other quarters of the war less important than Virginia and Tennes- 
see, the latter part of the year 1862 was without considerable interest. 
Since the commands of Price and Van Dorn had moved east of the Mis- 
sissippi, the campaign in the extensive country west of that river had be- 
come feeble and irregular. It was marked, however, by one battle — that 
of Prairie Grove — the dimensions of which were large for that campaign, 
and the results of no little importance to the country of the Trans-Mis- 
sissippi. 

In the latter months of 1862, Maj.-Gen. T. C. Hindman was command- 
ing what was known as the District of Arkansas. Lieut.-Gen. Iloimes 
was commanding the Trans-Mississippi department, with his headquarters 
at Little Kock. Gen. Blunt, commanding about seven thousand Federal 
troops, had advanced from Springfield as far as Cane Hill, Arkansas, 
driving Gen. Marmaduke, who was commandiug a small division of 
cavalry. Gen. Hindman, with about eight thousand Missouri, Texas, and 
Arkansas infantry and artillery, was at Yan Buren. It was considered 
necessary to oppose the further advance of Blunt ; and accordingly, on the 



OPERATIONS m THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. 353 

Ist December, Gen. Hindman put Ins whole force in motion to meet the 
enem J, and, if possible, drive him back, as a large supply of quartermaster 
and commissary stores had been collected at Yan Buren. 

Owing to delays occasioned by crossing the river and the bad condition 
of our transportation, the command did not reach the camp on Cove Creek 
until the evening of the 5th. The position was six miles from Cane Hill, 
the same where Gen. Price halted on his retreat from Springfield in the 
winter of 1861. When Gen. Hindman reached this place, he learned that 
Blunt was camped at Cane Hill, and that Gen. Herron, with five thousand 
men, was pushing on rapidly from Springfield to reinforce him. It was 
immediately determined by Hindman to meet this latter force, and, de- 
feating it, to turn upon Blunt, and force him to surrender. He issued an 
extravagant address to his soldiers, and designated the enemy opposed to 
them as a combination of " Pin Indians, free negroes. Southern tories, 
Kansas Jayhawkers, and hired Dutch cut-throats." He declared that un- 
less this ruthless force was defeated, the country would be ruined. 

In order that Gen. Hindman's plan of operations miglit bu effectual, it 
was necessary to engage Blunt's attention so as to prevent his falling back 
to Fayetteville, and forming a junction with Herron. For this purpose, 
early in the morning of the 6th December, a regiment of cavalry was sent 
to drive in the enemy's outposts nearest us. At sunrise, the 11th Missouri 
infantry were pushed forward as far as the cavalry had advanced, to de- 
ploy as if to invite attack. It only succeeded in developing a party of 
Indians, who declined attacking. In the evening, Hindman's whole force 
was moved up to the ground occupied by the lltli Missouri infantry, and 
a regiment of cavalry was ordered to drive in the skirmishers, and feel 
the main body. Some desultory fighting ensued, and continued until 
nightfall. 

Hindman's whole command, resting on their arms, were ordered to 
move at two o'clock in the morning on the roads towards Fayetteville, to 
attack Herron's force approaching the field of battle. A regiment of 
cavalry was ordered to remain with one battery of light field pieces, and 
to commence shelling the enemy in front at daylight. The next morning, 
the command struck the Fayetteville and Cane Hill i-oad, and surprised 
the advance-guard of Herron's force, capturing two hundred prisoners. 

This success appears to have confused Gen. Hindman, and, instead of 
atacking Herron immediately and with vigour, he divided his force, send- 
ing Parsons' brigade in the direction of Cane Hill, as if expecting an attack 
from Blunt. Meanwhile, Blunt, anticipating a flank movement, had fallen 
back, and Hindman made a new disposition of his forces. But valuable 
time had been lost, and the attack was not made on Herron's force until 
halt-past three o'clock in the afternoon. In our line of battle, the Arkansas 
troops were on the rigiit flank, the First Missouri brigade forming the 
23 



354 THE LOST CAUSE. 

centre, the Second Missouri brigade the lefr, and the Texan troops the 
reserve. The action had scarcely commenced, when Geu. Blunt, who, 
having burned his stores and his train, had made a rapid movement, by an 
obscure road leading through a valley, reached the battle-tield. The new 
force appeared upon the Confederate left. It was necessary for the First 
Missouri brigade to change its front from the east to the north, to meet tho 
charge which the enemy was now preparing to make. Just as the evolu- 
tion was completed, the combined forces of the enemy advanced to the 
charge. It was gallantly met by the two Missouri brigades. As night 
fell, the action was decided. The enemy was driven from the field ; Blunt 
swinging around, uniting with Ilerron, and both retreating. The Federal 
forces fell back six miles. 

The evidences of victory were with the Confederates. Their loss was 
about two hundred killed and five hundred wounded ; that of the enemy, 
by his own accounts, exceeded a thousand. It appears, however, that 
Hindman, who had blundered during the day, although he had yet suc- 
ceeded in driving the combined forces of Ilerron and Blunt, was so im- 
pressed with the fact they had formed a junction, that he determined to 
retreat during the night. The wheels of his artillery were muffled, and 
the Confederates actually retreated from a field of victory. Thus termi- 
nated the battle of Prairie Grove (as it was called by the Confederates) ; 
the importance of which was that it virtually decided tho war north of 
the Arkansas River. 

The country of the Trans-Mississippi suffered from peculiar causes in 
the war. A great part of it not only laboured under military incom- 
petency ; but singular disorders afi'ected the whole population, and an 
enormous despotism cursed the land. Gen. Hindman, who had but a weak 
head in military matters, exhibited an iron hand in the management of 
other afi'airs, usurped all authority in the country he occujiied, and exer- 
cised a tyrannical rule, that only finds a parallel in antique despotism. 
His conduct was made the subject of a special investigation in the Congress 
at Richmond. It was discovered that he had established within his mili- 
tary lines what he was pleased to call a " government ad interim^ He 
superseded the entire civil authority ; he deliberately amplified the con- 
scription law by proclamation ; he declared martial law throughout Ar- 
kansas and the northern portion of Texas ; and he demanded, under the 
penalty of death, the services of all whom he had tyrannically embraced 
in his conscription lists. Crops were ravaged ; cotton burned, or appro- 
priated to unknown purposes ; while straggling soldiers, belonging to dis- 
tant commands, traversed the country, armed and lawless, robbing the 
people of their property under the pretence of " impressing " it for the 
Confederate service. To a great part of the country within the limits of 
his command Hindman extended no protection whatever. Hostile Indians 



CRUELTIES AND DISOKDEKS OF GEN. HINDMAN. 356 

began collecting on the border, and Federal emissaries were busy among 
the Chcrokecs and Creeks, inciting disaffection. Detachments of Federal 
cavalry penetrated, at will, into various parts of the upper half of Ar- 
kansas, plundering and burning houses, stealing horses and slaves, destroy- 
ing farming utensils, murdering men loyal to the Confederacy, or carrying 
them into captivity, forcing the oath of allegiance on the timid, and dis- 
seminating disloyal sentiments among the ignorant. 

Such a condition of affairs could not long be tolerated, although the 
statements of it were slow in reaching Richmond, and obtaining the just 
consideration of the Government there. The cruelties and disorders of 
Hiudman — notoriously the favourite of President Davis — became at last 
60 enormous in Arkansas, that it was unsafe that he should remain there 
longer, when he was brought across the Mississippi Eiver, and assigned to 
some special duty. It was indeed remarkable that the people of the Trans- 
Mississippi, with such an experience of maltreatment, and in spite of a con- 
viction that the concerns of this distant portion of the Confederacy were 
grossly neglected at Richmond, should yet have, even to the latest period 
of the war, faithfully kept and fondly cherished their attachment to the 
vital principle of our struggle and the common cause of our arms. It was 
an exhibition of devotion and of extraordinary virtue in the Confederate 
States west of the Mississippi River that should be omitted in no historic 
record of the war. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

BBVIEW OF POLITICAL QUESTIONS IIT THE WAE. — THE THREAD OF ANTI-SLAVEEY LEGISLATION 

— PEESiDENT Lincoln's hesitation. — the opposition to his administeation. — schema 
OF compensated emancipation, — now visionary. — MB. Lincoln's motives in sug- 
gesting IT. THE PEESIDENT AND THE CHICAGO DEPUTATION. HIS CHAEAOTEEISTIO DIS- 

COUESE on SLAVERY. — HIS EEFEEENCE TO THE POPE's BULL AGAINST THE COMET. — POLIT- 
ICAL IMPOETANCE OF THE BATTLE OF SHAEPSBUEG. THE MASK DEOPPED. THE PROCLA- 
MATION OF EMANCIPATION. — MISEEPEESENTATIONS OF IT. — AN ACT OF MALICE TOWAEDS 
THE MASTEE, NOT ONE OF MEECY TO THE SLAVE. — PEETENCE OF " MILITAEY NECESSITY." 

— DISHONOUB OF THE PLEA. — PEOOF OF ITS FALSEHOOD. EFFECT OF THE EMANCIPATION 

PBOCLAMATION ON THE CONFEDERATES. — PEESIDENT DAVIs' COMMENTAEY. — SPIRIT OF 

THE PEESS AND PEOPLE OF THE CONFEDEEACY. EFFECT OF THE PBOCLAMATION IN THE 

NOETH. ANALYSIS OF THE NORTHEEN ELECTIONS OF 1862. THE DEMOCRATIC PROTEST 

AGAINST PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. SPEECH OF ME. COX IN THE rSu- 

EEAL CONGEESS. SUPPOSED DESIGN OF " EECONSTEUCTION " OF THE UNION. — HOW TUX 

IDEA WAS TREATED IN EICHMOND. SAVAGE DENUNCIATIONS OF IT. VIOE-PEESIDENT 

STEPHENS' DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OB DEATH. — MILITARY OPEEATIONS IN THE 
EARLY MONTHS OF 1863. — GENERAL CHAEACTEB OF THE WAE IN THE WINTEB SEASON. — 
THE EECAPTUEE OF GALVESTON BY THE CONFEDERATES. — FIGHT BETWEEN THE COTTON- 
BOATS AND THE FEDERAL FLEET. THE HAEEIET LANE OAPTUEED. THE OTHEE FEDEEAL 

VESSELS 8UEEENDEE, BUT ESCAPE UNDEE WHITE FLAGS. EENEWED ATTEMPTS AGAINST 

VICKSBUEG. SHAMEFUL FAILURE OF SHERMAN's EXPEDITION. THIRD ATTEMPT UPON 

VICKSBURG MADE BY GEN. GRANT. ITS FAILURE. — ATTEMPT OF FAEBAGUT's FLEET TO 

RUN PAST POET HUDSON. — DESTRUCTION OF THE MISSISSIPPI. — CAPTURE OF ARKANSAS 
POST BY THE FEDERALS. — ITS IMPORTANCE. — ATTACK OF AN IRON-CLAD FLEET UPON 

CHAELESTON. TRIAL BETWEEN IRON-CLADS AND ARTILLERY. COMBAT OF THE KEOKUK 

AND FORT SUMTER. — COMPLETE TRIUMPH OF THE CONFEDERATES. — THE PRESTIGE OF 
" MONITORS " DESTEOYED. 

The beginning of the year 1862 — when the heavy operations of the 
war on land were suspended by the rigour of winter — presents a conve- 
nient period for review of some political questions in the war. 

The thread of Anti-Slavery legislation appeared for some time to have 
been broken with the decree of emancipation in the District of Columbia. 
President Lincoln evidently hesitated to identify his Administration fur- 
ther with the radical party in the war. A formidable opposition was gath- 
ering in the North with especial reference to the Anti-Slavery acts of the 
Government at Washington ; it was declared that these acts were divert- 



THE ANTI-SLAVERY LEGISLATION. 357 

ing the war to the ends of fanaticism, and that the Government had delib- 
erately violated the pledge contained in the lesolution ofiered by Mr. 
Crittenden of Kentucky, and passed almost unanimously iu the House of 
Kepresentatives at the beginning of the civil conflict, to the eflect that the 
war should not be waged iu hostility to the institutions of any of tlio 
States. President Lincoln, as we have already seen, had been advised, in 
the summer of 1862, that McClellan disapproved of any infraction of the 
laws of civilized and Christian warfare ; that he disapproved of arbitrary 
arrests in places where the insurrection did not prevail ; that he did not 
contemplate any seizure of private property for the support of the army, or 
measures for punishing or desolating the region invaded ; but that he ear- 
nestly desired that the war should be carried on as a duel between oi'ganized 
armies, and not against non-combatants ; that the institutions of the States 
should be protected ; that no proclamation of freedom, incensing a servile 
race to indiscriminate massacre of helpless whites, and inviting the destruc- 
tion of unoffending blacks, should be permitted ; in fine, that, wherever it 
was possible, the military should be subordinate to the civil authority, and 
the Constitution alone should be the guide and glory of heroic sacrifice. 

It is remarkable that President Lincoln, in the summer of 1862, gave 
no distinct and decided evidence that this plan of action was obnoxious to 
him. His course at this time on the slavery question was rather disposed 
to conciliate both parties in the North ; and he did nothing more than 
make a bungling experiment at compromise in proposing a scheme of 
compensated emancipation, which being excessively visionary and imprac- 
ticable, soon passed out of the public mind. It was readily seen by men 
of all parties that this scheme would create a pecuniary burden which the 
Government would be utterly unable to carry along with the expenses of 
the war. At the rate of $300, it was calculated that the slaves in the in- 
surgent States would be worth $1,019,508,000 ; and adding the cost of 
compensation to the Border States, at the same rate, the aggregate expense 
of emancipation would be $1,185,840,300. There was no disposition on 
the part of the tax-paying public to meet such liabilities in addition to the 
war debt ; and the scheme of compensated emancipation never went fur- 
ther than a record of votes in Congress. That body passed a resolution 
that " the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may 
adopt gi'adual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, 
to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconve- 
niences, public and private, produced by such a change of system." In 
pursuance of this resolution, President Lincoln transmitted to Congress the 
draft of a bill upon the subject. The bill was referred to a committee, but 
no action was taken upon it, nor did any of the Border States respond to 
the President's invitation to take the initiative in his scheme, and try the 
drtue of the resolution adopted by Congress. 



358 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Bat although the scheme of compensated emancipation was visionary 
with regard to the objects it professed, it is quite possible that it may have 
served a secret purpose of Mr. Lincoln, and that it was really intended to 
test the sentiment of both sections of the countrj^, and to prepare the way 
for the more vigorous treatment of the subject of slavery. The time was 
coming when he would have to decide between the conservative and radi- 
cal elements of the North, and determine a question which was being 
pressed upon him by public sentiments which could not be compromised. 
On the 15th September, 1862, a memorial was presented to him by a depu- 
tation from Cliicago, praj'ing for the immediate issue of a proclamation of 
emancipation. Mr. Lincoln entertained the delegation with a long and 
rambling discourse. He was represented in the Northern newspapers to 
have made the following characteristic and interesting reply : 

" The subject presented in the memorial is one upon which I have thought much for 
weeks past, and I may may even say for months. I am approached with the most oppo- 
site opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain Ihat they 
represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in 
that belief, and perhaps in some respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me 
to say that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others, on a point so con- 
nected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me ; for, unless 
I am more deceived la myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will 
of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is, I will do it ! These are not, 
however, the days of miracles ; and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect 
a direct revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is 
possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right, 

" The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree. For instance, the other day, 
four gentlemen of standing and intelligence ft-om New York, called as a delegation on 
business connected with the war ; but before leaving, two of them earnestly besought me 
to proclaim general emancipation, upon whicli the other two at once attacked them. 
You know also that the last session of Congress had a decided majority of anti-slavery 
men, yet they could not unite on this policy. And the same is true of the religious 
people. Why, the rebel soldiers are praying with a great deal more earnestness, I fear, 
than our own troops, and expecting God to favour their side : for one of our soldiers, 
who had been taken prisoner, told Senator Wilson, a few days since, that he met nothing 
to discouraging as the evident sincerity of those he was among in their prayers. But we 
will talk over the merits of the case. 

" What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me do, especially as we are 
now situated ? I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must 
necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet ! Would my word free 
the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States? Is there a 
single court, or magistrate, or individual that could be influenced by it there ? And what 
reason is there to think it would have any greater effect upon the slaves than the late 
law of Congress, which I approved, and which offers protection and freedom to the slaves 
of rebel masters who come within our lines ? Yet I cannot learn that that law has caused 
a single slave to come over to us. And suppose they could be induced by a proclama- 
tion of freedom from me to throw themselves upon us, what should we do with them ? 
How can we feed and care for such a multitude? Gen. Butler wrote me a few days since 



PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION. S&D 

that ho was issuing more rations to tlie slaves who have rushed to him than to all the 
white troops under his command. They eat, and that is all." 

Such were the views entertained by Mr. Lincoln on the 15th day of 
September, 1862, on the snbject of emancipation. The time of this con- 
ference was significant. The progress of the war was inauspicious ; the 
Confederates had penetrated the North, and were actually threatening 
Washington ; and at all such periods of wavering confidence in the war, 
the Northern Government was singularly prompt to incline towards the 
moderate party, and to hold up in its progress to radicalism. It was cer- 
tainly no time to decide domestic institutions in the Confederacy when 
that belligerent was actually threatening the existence of the Government 
at Washington. But at this precise conjuncture of politics the battle of 
Sharpsburg was fought ; the mask was dropped ; and on the 22d Septem- 
ber, 1862, President Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation of emanci- 
pation, of which the following is the important portion : 

" That on the iirst day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hun- 
dred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any States or designated part of a 
State, the people whereof shall then he in rebellion against the United States, shall be 
then, thenceforward, arid forever free ; and the Executive Government of the United 
States, including tiie military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintam 
the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of 
them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. 

" That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, des- 
ignate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall 
then be in i-ebellion against the United States ; and the fact that any State, or tiie people 
thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United 
States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters 
of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testi- 
mony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not 
then in rebellion against the United States." 

Tliis was followed by the proclamation of 1st Januaiy, 1863, designat- 
ing the States in which emancipation shou^ld take immediate effect ; the 
notice of one hundred days, counting from the j^reliminary ^proclamation, 
having expired. 

Thus was consummated the triumph of the Abolition party of the 
North. Thus was, at last, avowed the war upon slavery, and thus delib- 
erately planned the robbery of the Southern people to the extent of two 
thousand millions of dollars. It is true that this proclamation was for the 
time of no effect, and that when it was issued it was worth no more than 
the paper on which its bold iniquity was traced ; nevertheless, it was the 
avowal of a principle, the declaration of a wish, the deliberate attempt of 
the Chief Magistrate of a nation to do that which was repugnant to civiliz- 



360 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ation and all morals. The misrepresentation of the emancipation procla- 
mation, as a deed of philanthropy, was absurd enough. A candid world 
found no difficulty in interpreting it as an act of malice towards the master 
rather than one of mercy to the slave. A crime was attempted in the 
name of liberty and humanity ; and various hypocritical pretences were 
used to cover up what was an unholy infatuation, a ruthless persecution, 
a cruel and shameful device, adding severity and bitterness to a wicked 
and reckless war. 

The new measure was adopted in the name of a " Tnilitary necessity^ 
Aside from its falsehood, the plea was one that dishonoured the North, and 
placed it in shameful inconsistency. Again and again it had been pro- 
claimed to the world, that " the rebellion was weak, and would be crushed 
out in sixty days ; " at other times, it was declared that " Union men 
abounded in the South, and would welcome Federal troops as deliverers ; 
and yet now the invader was so hopeless of his task, that it was a " military 
necessity " that he obtain help of slaves ! If the proclamation had been 
designed as a " military necessity," it was very clear that it should end 
with the war, and be confined to the special mission for which it had been 
invoked. The fact was that the real design was political, not military ; 
that emancipation was not the exigency of the war, but the permanent 
triumph of fanaticism under a false pretence. We shall see at a future time 
how beyond the point of this proclamation the Anti-Slavery legislation at 
Washington was enlarged by the establishment of a Bureau of Freedmen's 
Affairs, to determine all questions relating to persons of African descent, 
and finally, by an amendment of the Constitution, the efiect of which was 
to entomb slavery forever, to erect emancipation into a constitutional re- 
form, and thus exhibit and confirm what was its original design. 

The effect of the emancipation proclamation on the Confederates was 
decided. It secured a new lease of war, and animated the peoj)le of the 
South to desperate exertion. In a message, communicated on the 12tli 
January, 1863, to the Congress at Richmond, President Davis said : " The 
proclamation will have a salutary efiect in calming the fears of those who 
have constantly evinced the apprehension that this war might end by some 
reconstruction of the old Union, or some renewal of close political relations 
with the United States. These fears have never been shared by me, nor 
have I been able to perceive on what basis they could rest. But the 
proclamation afibrds the fullest guaranty of the impossibility of such a 
result. It has established a state of things which can lead to but one of 
three consequences — the extermination of the slaves, the exile of the whole 
white population of the Confederacy, or absolute and total separation of 
these States from the United States." The entire newspaper press of the 
Confederacy echoed the sentiment of the President. It was declared that 
.he outrage of forcible emancipation would awaken a deeper resentment 



THE DEMOCRATIC PAUTT IN THE NORTH. 361 

than ever inflamed the people of the South before ; that it had cpienched 
the last sentiment of respect that lingered in their breasts for the United 
States Government; that it would .unite them more resolutely than ever, 
and make it to the individual interest of every person in the bounds of the 
Confederacy to sustain and strengthen it Avith every dollar and every arm, 
and every prayer, and every energy of manly virtue and Christian en- 
couragement. 

The effect of the proclamation in the Korth was to strengthen the Oppo- 
sition ; and the preliminary announcement of emancipation in September, 
1862, was undoubtedly a main element of success in the Democratic tri- 
umphs in the fall elections of that year. The gains of the Democratic 
party at this time were the subject of great concern to those in power at 
"Washington. In the face of a majority of 107,000 against them in 1860, 
the Democrats had carried the State of New York. The metropolis of 
New York was carried by a Democratic majority of 31,000 — a change of 
48,000 votes in twelve months. "Within the great States of New Jersey, 
New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and lUniois, the results of the 
popular elections were a more or less emphatic avowal of opposition to the 
schemes of those who were using the power of the Government for narrow 
and sectional and despotic purposes. The significance of these elections 
was not only confined to the issue of emancipation, A large portion of the 
Northern people pronounced against the entire policy of Mr. Lincoln's 
Administration. They condemned that relic of the worst times of French 
tyranny, the lettres de cachet ; they raised their voices against irrespon- 
sible arrests ; they complained of the small measure of success in the war, 
and the disappointment of the hopes of the people in this regard ; and 
while protesting against the edict of emancipation, they reminded Mr. 
Seward of his declaration, made on the 10th March, 1 862, in a letter to 
Mr. Adams in London, that such a measure " would re-invigorate the 
declining insurrection in every part of the South." 

On the 15th December, 1862, Mr. Cox, Democratic member from Ohio, 
in a speech in the House of Representatives, described the condition of the 
North, and exhibited a bill of particulars against Mr. Lincoln's Adminis- 
tration, which may be taken as a declaration of the principles and views 
of his party. He stated that the present cost of the war to the North was 
$1,000,000 per day, which was not being replaced ; for all that was spent 
ill war was, by the laws of economy, a loss to those who spend it, as a mere 
pecuniary transaction, and not counting ultimate and moral results. He 
declared that since Mr. Lincoln's Administration came into power there 
had been lost to the country, merely as a matter of business, not counting 
debt and taxes of a national or State character, at least three hundred mil- 
lions in the destiniction of property, interference with established business, 
increase in wages, spoliation of railroads, depots, produce, corn, wheat. 



362 THE LOST CAUSE. 

flour, cotton, hay, crops, &c. He pointed out the fact that the Govern- 
ment had devised a system of taxation by tariff which imposed a burden 
on the "West, to benefit manufacturing in New England, and paid in- 
directly sixty millions into the treasury and hundreds of millions into the 
pockets of capitalists, from the consumers, who were mostly farmers in the 
West. He complained of a system of internal taxation, costing for collec- 
tion some four millions extra, which might have been saved, and levying 
in one year $150,000,000 as interest only on a great national debt, and 
with an army of newly-made office-holders, with exorbitant salaries. .He 
stated that within six hundred and fifty-one days, a party had succeeded 
which proposed, by legislation and proclamation, to break down a labour 
system in eleven States, of four millions of negroes, whose industry had 
been productive hitherto, worth, on or before the 4th of March, 1861, an 
average of $500 apiece, being in all two thousand millions of dollars. He 
prophesied that when this capital was destroyed the objects of this pseudo- 
philanthropy would remain on hand, North and South, as a mass of de- 
pendent and improvident black beings, for whose care the tax would be 
almost equal to the war-tax, before their condition would again be fixed 
safely and prosperously. He concluded with tlie summary and startling 
statement that within these six hundred and fifty-one days the rights of 
personal liberty, freedom from arrest without process, freedom for press 
and speech, and the right of habeas corpus had been suspended and limited, 
and, at times, destroyed ; and in the place of resurrected and promised 
liberty to four million blacks, the North had the destruction of that lib- 
erty which the past eight hundred years had awarded to the Anglo- 
Saxon race. 

The triumphs of the Democratic party had taken place in the most 
powerful and populous States of the North. The States in which the party 
gained in the fall elections of 1862 contained a majority of the Free State 
population ; had two-thirds of the wealth of the North ; and famished a 
majority of the troops in the field against us. This important and impos- 
ing demonstration of public opinion in the North was interpreted by the 
Republican party as significant of a Democratic design of " reconstruc- 
tion," in which the Southern States might be brought back into the Union 
with new constitutional guaranties. But this idea, if it was ever seriously 
entertained by the Democratic party of the North, found enough to dis- 
courage it in the manner in which the bare suggestion of it was cried down 
in all parts of the Confederacy, and by every organ of public opinion 
tliere. The Confederate press desperately and savagely denounced the 
idea of " reconstruction." The Examiner said of the Northern people : 
" They do not yet understand that we are resolute to be rid of them for- 
ever, and determined rather to die than to live with them in the same 
political community again." The Dispatch declared : " We warn tho 



EARLY MONTHS OF 1S63. 363 

Democrats and conservatives of the ISTorth to dismiss from their minds at 
once the miserable delusion that the South can ever consent to enter again, 
upon any terms, the old Union. If the North will allow us to write the 
Constitution ourselves, and give ns every guaranty we would ask, we would 
sooner be under the Government of England or France than under a 
Union with men who h&ve shown that they cannot keep good faith, and 
are the most barbarous and inhuman, as well as treacherous of mankind- 
. . . . But do not expect us to degrade ourselves and cast dishonour 
upon the graves of our kindred by ever returning to the embrace of those 
whose hands are dripping with the tears and blood of our people." The 
leaders and politicians of the Confederacy were not behind the press in 
denouncing the idea of any possible reunion with the North. Alexander 
H. Stephens, Vice-Pi'csident of the Confederate States, made a speech in 
North Carolina, which in view of the sequel attached to this man, is a 
curious personal reminiscence of the war. He said : " As for reconstrac- 
tion, such a thing was impossible — such an idea must not be tolerated for 
an instant. Reconstruction would not end the war, but would produce a 
more horrible war than that in which we are now engaged. The only 
terms on which we can obtain permanent peace is final and complete sep- 
aration from the North. Rather than submit to anything short of that, 
let us resolve to die like men worthy of freedom." 

It appeared indeed that the people of the South had fully made up 
their minds ; that they were prepared to suffer all the calamities of the 
most protracted war ; and that they would never, on any terms, politically 
affiliate with a people, who were guilty of an invasion of their soil, and 
whose atrocities in the war had caused the whole civilized world to shudder. 



MILITARY OPERATIONS IN THE EARLY MONTHS OF 1863. 

Before reaching the great campaign of 1863, dated with the fighting 
months of summer, we find certain minor operations of the war within the 
period of winter and early spring, of which we may coveniently give here 
a summary account. The heavy rains of winter and early spring pre- 
vented heavy movements on land, and this period in the history of the war 
we shall generally find occupied by attempts of the enemy on the seacoast 
or by amphibious expeditions on the inland waters of the Confederacy. 
Tlie most important of the events referred to as preceding what may be 
indicated as the grand campaign of 1863, were the recapture of Galveston 
by the Confederates ; renewed attempts of the enemy on Vicksburg, with 
some other entei'prises on the waters of the Mississippi ; and the repulse of 
the Federal fleet at Charleston. The narrative of these events is mostly a 
Btory of successes for the Confederates — the sum of which was considerable, 



364 THE LOST CAUSE. 

and tliG effect a spirited preparation and an auspicionB prospect for the 
larger issues of the year. 

Gen. Magruder, who had been appointed to the command of the Con 
federate forces in Texas, found the harbours of this coast in the possession 
of the enemy from the Sabine liiver to Corpus Christi, and tbe line of the 
Rio Grande virtually abandoned. He resolved to regain the harbours, if 
possible, and to occupy the Valley of the Rio Grande in force. The first 
step of his enterprise contemplated the expulsion of the enemy's vessels 
from the harbour of Galveston, and the re-possession of that town. Having 
assembled all the moveable artillery that could be collected in the neigh- 
bourhood, he occupied in force the works erected opposite the island on 
which the town of Galveston stands, and commanding the railway bridge 
which connects it with the mainland. He also fitted up as gunboats two 
steamers, the Bayou City and the ISTeptune, making them shot-proof, by 
means of bulwarks of cotton bales. The enemy's fleet, then lying in the 
waters of Galveston, consisted of the Harriet Lane, carrying four heavy 
guns, and two 24:-pounder howitzers, commanded by Capt. Wainwright ; 
the Westfield, flag-ship of Commodore Renshaw ; a large propeller, mount- 
ing eight lieavy guns ; the Owasco, a similar ship to the Westfield, mount- 
ing eight heavy guns ; the Clifton, a steam propeller, four heavy guns ; the 
Sachem, a steam propeller, four heavy guns ; two armed transports ; two 
large barques ; and an armed schooner. 

The enemy's land forces — a few hundred men — were stationed at the 
end of a long wharf, and were crowded into large buildings immediately 
under the guns of the steamships. The approaches landward to this posi- 
tion were impeded by two lines of strong barricades, and communication 
with the shore was destroyed by the removal of portions of the wharf in 
front of the barricades. It thus became necessary for storming parties to 
advance by wading through the water, and to mount on the end of the 
wharf by scaling ladders. 

It was arranged by Gen. Magruder that the naval and military opera- 
tions should be simultaneous, and should commence before daybreak on the 
1st January, 1863. The co-operatiOn of the cotton-boats with the land 
forces was extremely difiicult to obtain — the distance the former had to run 
being thirty miles. The attack was opened a little past midnight by a 
shot from our land batteries. The moon had gone down, but the Federal 
ships were still visible by the light of the stars. Leading the centre as- 
sault, Gen. Magruder approached to within two squares of the wharves, 
where the enemy's land forces were stationed, and where he was within 
three hundred yards of the enemy's formidable fleet. While Magruder 
engaged the vessels with artillery, the storming party advanced to the 
assault ; the men wading through the water, and bearing with them their 
Bcaling ladders with which they endeavoured to reach the end of the wharf 



RECAPTURE OF GALVESTON. 365 

on wliich the enemj was stationed. A severe conflict took place at this 
point, the Confederates being exposed to a fire of grape, canister, and 
shell, and at last being compelled to- take the shelter of the bnildings near 
tlie wharf. 

As the njorning advanced, our fire still continning, the long-expected 
cotton-boats came dashing down the harbour, and engaged the Harriet 
Lane, which was the nearest of the enemy's ships, in gallant style, running 
into her, one on each side, and pouring on her deck a deadly fire of rifles 
and shot-guns. The gallant Capt. Wainwright fought his ship admirably. 
He succeeded in disabling the ISTeptuue, and attempted to run down tlio 
Bayou City. Tlie Confederate boat adroitly evaded the deadly stroke ; 
although, as the vessels passed each other, she lost her larboard Avheel- 
house in the shock. Again the Bayou City, while receiving several broad- 
sides almost at the cannon's mouth, poured into the Harriet Lane a de- 
structive fire of small ai-ms. Turning once more, she drove her prow into 
the iron wheel of the Harriet Lane, thus locking the two vessels together. 
Followed by ofiicers and men. Commodore Leon Smith leaped to the deck 
of the hostile ship^ and after a moment of feeble resistance she was ours. 

After the surrender, the Owasco passed along side, pouring into the 
Harriet Lane a broadside at close quarters ; but she was soon forced to 
back out by the effect of our musketry. Commodore Smith then sent a 
flag to Commodore Kenshaw, whose ship, the Westfield, had, in the mean 
time, been run aground, demanding the surrender of the whole fleet, and 
giving three hours time to consider. These propositions were accepted by 
the commanding oflicer, and all the enemy's vessels were immediately 
brought to anchor with white flags flying. Within an hour of the expira- 
tion of the period of truce, Gen. Magruder sent another flag to Commodore 
Renshaw, whose ship was among the most distant, claiming all his vessels 
immediately under our guns as j)rizes, and giving him further time to con- 
sider the demand for the surrender of the whole fleet. This message was 
borne by two Confederate oflacers. AVliile they were on their way in a 
boat, to fulfil their mission. Commodore Renshaw blew up his ship, and 
was himself accidentally blown up with it. They boarded the ship of the 
next in command, who dropped down the bay, still having them on board, 
and carried them some distance towards the bar, while still flying the 
white flag at the mast-head. Meanwhile, the first period of truce having 
expired, the enemy's ships under our guns, discovering that the Confeder- 
ate boats and their prize were too much damaged to pursue, and re- 
gardless of the white flags still flying at their mast-heads, gradually crept 
off. The small Federal force which held the wharf, perceiving that they 
were abandoned by the fleet, surrendered as prisoners. 

The capture of Galveston was thus completed ; besides which we had 
taken one fine steamship and two barques, run ashore the flag-ship of the 



366 THE LOST CAUSE. 

commodore, and driven off two war steamers, breaking the blockade of the 
port, and temporarily reopening it to commerce. 

We have already noticed some attempt of the enemy to open the Mis 
sissippi River, and to renew commercial communication between the 
North westei'n States and their natural port at New Orleans. The interest 
of the war in the West, after the battle of Murfreesboro', may be said to 
have culminated in Yicksburg, and the campaign in the State of Missis- 
sippi was chiefly important in so far as it affected the operations for the 
reduction of this town, which closed the coui'se of the great river to the 
Federal fleets. 

The second attempt against Vicksburg was to be made by Gen. Sher 
man, who in the latter part of December, 1862, with four divisions under 
his command, accompanied by several gunboats, commenced the descent of 
the Mississippi River. The expedition was a shameful failure. Sherman, 
having landed his forces, attempted to capture the town from the north- 
western side, and daring the last days of December, there was some desul 
tory fighting, when the Federal commander, without making any concen- 
trated attack on the Confederate position, abandoned the enterprise, and 
re-embarked his troops at Milliken's Bend. The weak and disgraceful 
issue of this expedition is chiefly remarkable for its connection with the 
name of a commander declared incompetent, at this period of the war, and 
yet destined to win the reputation of a hero from the fickle m altitude of 
the North. 

After Sherman's failure. Gen. Grant made the third attempt upon 
Vicksburg, endeavouring, by combined naval and military operations, to 
turn the rear of the line of defence. Several expeditions were planned io 
the spring months of 1863, to turn the defences of the town, by means of 
the vast network of rivers, such as the Tallahatchie, Yazoo Pass, and Sun- 
flower, which connect the Mississippi River with the Yazoo. These expe- 
ditions terminated without success, and are chiefly memorable for devasra- 
tions of the country, which, indeed, was the usual resource of the enemy 
whenever disappointed in the accomplishment of military results. 

While Grant was thus operating against Yicksburg, an attempt was 
made by the lower Federal fleet, under Farragut, to pass the batteries at 
Port Hudson, so as to co-operate with Admiral Porter's fleet on the upper 
waters. On the night of the 14th March, the Hartford, Farragut's flag- 
ship, steamed slowly up the river, passing the first of the line of batteries, 
followed by the Richmond, Mississippi, Monongahela, Genesee, Albatross, 
Kineo, the iron-clad Essex, the gunboat Sachem, and a mortar flotilla of 
six schooners. The Confederate batteries were silent, waiting to bring the 
whole fleet under their guns before they went to work. Presently there 
was one grand, long, deafening roar, and the battle was commenced. A 
great fire had been lighted on the river's bank, near one of the most for- 



NAVAL ATTACK ON CHARLESTON. 3G7 

midable worts, to throw light across the stream and to ilhimine the ene- 
my's vessels. The artillerists on shore had no difficulty in sighting tlieii 
guns. The sheets of flame tliat poured from the sides of the vessels at 
each discharge, lit up nearly the whole stretch of river, placing each craft 
in strong relief against the black sky. The fleet soon lost its orderly line 
of battle. The Hartford was struck, but being a swift vessel, succeeded, 
with her consort, the Albatross, in running past the batteries. The Rich- 
mond, and the vessels following her, turned round ; but as the Mississippi 
was executing this manoeuvre, a shot tore off' her rudder, and another went 
crushing through the machinery. She drifted aground on the right bank 
of the river. She was being rapidly torn to pieces by shot from the bat- 
teries, when her commander abandoned her. Lightened by the departure 
of the crew, and influenced by the current, she floated off", stern foremost, 
down the river, in a sheet of flame, exploding her magazine, and sinking 
near Providence Island. The enterprise against Port Hudson had proved 
a failure, and Gen. Banks, who was advancing from Baton Rouge to take 
part in the anticipated siege, was content to march back again. 

So far the Confederate strongholds on the ]\Iississippi had bid defiance 
to the foe, and months of costly preparation for their reduction had been 
spent in vain. But after Sherman''s repulse from Yicksburg some com- 
pensation was sought in an easier enterprise, and McClernand, who suc- 
ceeded hiui in command, organized an expedition of two cor2)s cVannee^ 
and a fleet of three iron-clads, and several gunboats, against Arkansas 
Post, a village on the Arkansas River, about fifty miles from its mouth. 
The position had been fortified by the Confederates, and was held by Gen. 
Churchill with about thirty-three hundred efl"ective men. On the 11th 
January, a combined attack was arranged between Gen. McClernand and 
Admiral Porter. Before the final assault was made, the garrison, finding 
themselves unable to reply to the fire of the gunboats, and overwhelmed 
by superiour numbers, hoisted a white flag, and surrendered. The im- 
portance of this capture by the enemy was, that he obtained a fortified 
point guarding the navigation of the Arkansas River, and shutting out its 
commerce from the Mississippi. 

For some time the enemy had been making preparations for an attack 
on Charleston from the sea. There was an especial desire in the North to 
capture and punish this city, where the first movements of the war had 
commenced, and it was fondly hoped that on the anniversary of the first 
capture of Sumter there would be a change of flags, and the Federal ensign 
would again float from its walls. To accomplish this pleasant event, a 
large fleet, including many iron-clads built after the model of the Monitor, 
had been assembled at Port Royal, under command of Admiral Dupont, 
and about the first of April was ready for action at the mouth of Charles- 
ton Unrbour. There v/ere seven iron-clads of the Monitor pattern ; 



368 THE LOST CAUSE. 

other descriptions of iron-clads were exemplified in the Keokuk and IroU' 
sides, the latter being an armour-plated frigate, with an armament of 
eighteen 10, 11, and 15-inch guns. It was to be a trial between new forces 
of tremendous power. The defences at Charleston had been materially 
strengthened by Gen. Beauregard, who had been assigned to the coast 
service ; and it was thought scarcely possible that any floating thing could 
breast unharmed the concentrated storm of heavy metal from the guns of 
Sumter, Moultrie, and Battery Bee, the three principal works in the throat 
of the harbour. A test was at last to be obtained of a long-mooted ques- 
tion, and iron-clads, which were claimed to be the most impenetrable ves- 
sels ever constructed, were to come within point-blank range of the most 
numerous and powerful batteries that had ever been used in a single en- 
gagement. 

In the afternoon of the Yth April, the line of iron-clads, comprising 
seven Monitors, the Ironsides, and Keokuk, entered the channel, and passed 
Battery Bee, and along the front of Morris Island. No sound came from 
the batteries ; not a man was seen on the decks of the iron-clads ; the sea 
was smooth as glass, and thus calmly and majestically the whole line of 
vessels passed the outer batteries. At ten minutes after three, the fleet, 
having come within range. Fort Sumter opened its batteries, and, almost 
simultaneously, the white smoke could be seen pufling from the low sand- 
hills of Morris and Sullivan's Islands indicating that the batteries there 
had become engaged. Five of the iron-clads forming in line of battle in 
front of Fort Sumter, maintained a very rapid return flre, occasionally 
hurling their fifteen-inch shot and shell against Fort Moultrie and minor 
batteries, but all directing their chief eflbrts against the east face of Fort 
Sumter. The firing became terrific. The Ironsides, from her position, 
engaged Fort Moultrie ; Battery Bee mingled the hoarse thunder of its guns 
in the universal din, and the whole expanse of the harbour entrance, from 
Sullivan's Island to Cummings' Point, became enveloped in the smoke 
and constant flashes of the conflict. The iron-clads kept constantly sliift- 
ing their position ; but, whichever way they went, their ports always 
turned towards the battlements of Sumter, pouring forth their terrible 
projectiles against the walls of that famous stronghold. 

Presently the Keokuk pushed ahead of her companions, placed herself 
within less than nine hundred yards of the fort, and seemed to challenge 
it to combat. A circle of angry flashes radiated towards her from all sides ; 
she had made herself the target of the most powerful guns the Confeder- 
ates could command. In a few moments, she was disabled, and crept 
slowly out of fire. The remainder of the fleet, more or less severely in- 
jured, withdrew, and in thirty minutes from the time when the first gun 
opened, the action was over, and a victory obtained, which went far to im- 
peach the once dreaded power of the iron-clads of the enemy. Admiral 



NAVAL ATTACK ON CHAKLESTON. 369 

Dupont, " convinced of the utter impracticability of taking the city of 
Charleston with the force under his command," retired to Port Royal, 
leaving the stranded, riddled wreck of the iron-clad Keokuk as evidence 
Df his defeat. All his vessels had sustained serious injury. The Confeder- 
ates, with but two death casualties, had driven off an iron-clad fleet, ob- 
tained a complete triumph, and destroyed the prestige of the description 
of vessel named after the Monitor, the first of its class. 
24 



CHAPTER XXII. 

MtUTAEY SITUATION IN THE EARLY MOIfTHS OF 1863. — EARLY RESITMPTION OF THE OAMPAIQH 
IN VIRGINIA. — THE NEW FEDERAL FAVOURITE, " FIGHTING JOE HOOKER." — THE BATTLE 
OF CHANCELLORSVILLE, — HOOKEr's PLAN OF OPERATIONS. — HIS FLAMING ADDRESS TO HIS 
TROOPS. — CRITICAL SITUATION OF GEN. LEE. — SURROUNDED BY AN ENEMY MORE THAN 
THREEFOLD HIS NUMBERS. — CALMNESS AND SELF-POSSESSION OF LEE. — HIS DELIBERATB 
DISPOSITIONS FOR ATTACK. — THE FI/ANK-MAROH OF STONEWALL JACKSON. — HOW HE 
EMERGED FROM " THE WILDERNESS." — ^FALL OF STONEWALL JACKSON. — THE IMPETUS OF 
THE CONFEDERATE ATTACK CEASES. — HOW. GEN. LEE RECEIVED THE NEWS OF JACKSON's 
FAiL. — THE BATTLE IN FRONT OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. — HOOKEr's ARMY CRIPPLED AND 

DRIVEN. — Sedgwick's advance from Fredericksburg. — it arrests lee's pursuit of 

HOOKER. — the fight NEAR SALEM CHURCH. — SEDGWIOK's FORCE ROUTED. — HOOKER 
RETREATS ACROSS THE RIVER. — HIS TERRIBLE LOSSES. — CHANCELLORSVILLE, THE MASTER- 
PIECE OF lee's military LIFE. — REFLECTIONS ON THE VICTORY. — STARTLING OFFICIAL 
DEVELOPMENTS AS TO THE NUMBERS OF CONFEDERATE ARMIES. — PARTICULARS OF THE 
DEATH OP JACKSON. — EXACT REPORT OF HIS LAST WORDS. — CHARACTER OF STONEWALL 
JACKSON. — HIS GREAT AMBITION. — EARLY MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE MAN. — HOW HE WAS 

RIDICULED. HIS DIFFERENCE WITH PRESIDENT DAVIS. — HIS RESIGNATION SENT IN, BUT 

RECALLED. — JAOKSON's MILITARY CAREER. — HIS GENIUS. — HIS PIETY. — HIS EPICENE 
NATURE. — PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF THE HERO. — WHAT VIRGINIA OWES TO HIS MEMORY. 

The military situation in the spring montlis of 1863 may be described 
by a few general lines drawn througli the country, and bounding the main 
theatres of the war. In Yirginia either army was in view of the other 
from the heights overlooking the town of Fredericksburg, whilst the coun- 
try between the Eappahannock and the Potomac was at various times 
visited by detachments of Stuart's daring cavalry. The army of Ten- 
nessee was tied to no special line of operations ; it was embarrassed by no 
important point, such as Richmond requiring to be defended ; it had thus 
greatly the advantage over the army of Yirginia ; and yet we have seen, 
and shall continue to see, that it was far inferiour in activity and enter- 
prise to the latter, and that, while Gen. Lee was overthi'owing every army 
that came against him, Bragg was idle, or constantly yielding up territory 
to a conquering foe. From March till June, in 1863, Gen. Bragg's forces 
remained idly stretching from Shelbyville to the right, while the Federals, 



MILITAJIY SITUATION m THE SPKING CF ]863. 371 

holding a line from Franklin to Woodbury, again and again, afforded 
opportunities of attack on detached masses which the dull Confederate 
commander never used. West of the Alleghany Mountains the war had 
travelled steadily southward to Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. In 
Mississippi we held the line of the Tallahatchie and the town of Vicksburg, 
while Grant threatened the northern portion of the State, and McClernand 
menaced Yicksburg, West of the Mississippi the war had been pushed to 
the banks of the Arkansas River, the Federals held Yan Buren, and Hind- 
man's weak and shifting tactics opposed an uncertain front to further 
advance of the enemy in this distant territory. 

The great campaign of 1863 was to open in Virginia. There were 
especial reasons at Washington for an early resumption of the campaign. 
The Democratic party was gaining strength, in the absence of any grand 
success in the war ; and the term of service of many of the Federal sol- 
diers in Virginia was so near expiration that it was thought advisable to 
try again the issue of battle at a period somewhat earlier in the year than 
the date of former operations against Richmond, A change of command- 
ers, which had come to be the usual preliminary of the resumption of Fed- 
eral campaigns, was not omitted.* Gen. Joe Hooker was raised from the 

* Mr. Headley, a Northern authour, in his interesting work, " The Campaigns of Slierman and 
Grant," makes the following very just commentary on the Northern mania for a " change of com- 
manders." Referring to the achievements of these two popular heroes of the war, he says : 

" It is not to be supposed that they were the only two great generals the war had produced, or 
the only ones who were able to bring it to a successful issue. It is an errour to imagine, as many 
do, that the Government kept casting about for men fit to do the work these men did, and, after 
long searching, at length found them. Several were displaced, who would have, doubtless, suc- 
ceeded in bringing us ultimate victory, had they been allowed a fair trial. The errour was in sup- 
posing that men, capable of controlling such vast armies, and carrying on a war of such magnitude 
and covering almost a continent in its scope, were to be found ready-made. They were not to leap 
forth, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, completely panoplied and ready for the service to 
which they were determined. A war of such magnitude, and covering the territories that ours did, 
would have staggered the genius of Napoleon, or the skill of Wellington, even at the close of 
their long experience and training. To expect, therefore, that officers, who had never led ten 
thousand men to battle, were suddenly to become capable of wielding half a million, was absurd. 
Both the army and the leaders, as well as the nation, had to grow by experience to the vastness of 
the undertaking. A mighty military genius, capable at once of comprehending and controlUng the 
condition of things, would have upset the government in six months. Trammelled, confined, and 
baffled by ' ignorance and unbelief,' it would have taken matters into its own hand. Besides, 
euch prodigies do not appear every century. We were children in such a complicated and wide- 
sweeping struggle ; and, like children, were compelled to learn to walk by many a stumble. 
Greene, next to Washington, was the greatest general our revolutionary war produced ; yet, in 
almost his first essay, he lost Port Washington, with its four thousand men, and seriously crippled 
his great leader. But Washington had the sagacity to discern his military ability beneath his 
failure, and still gave him his confidence. To a thinking man, that was evidently the only way for 
us to get a competent general — one capable of planning and carrying out a great campaign. Here 
was our vital errour. The Government kept throwing dice for able commanders. It is true that 
experience will not make a great man out of a naturally weak one ; but it is equally true that 
without it, a man of great natiy-al military capacity will not b*^ equal to vast responsibilities and 



372 , -I'HE LOST CAUSE. 

position of corps commander to tliat of general-in-chief, and appointed to 
take command of the fifth attempt against Eiclimond. He was an im- 
mense braggart. His popular designation was " Fighting Joe Hooker.'" 
He had made himself famous in the newspapers by his fierce criticisms of 
McClellan's campaigns ; had predicted certain capture of Richmond undei 
his own leadership ; and w^as just the man whose boastful confidence 
might kindle anew the hopes of the credulous people of the North. 



THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

On th« 27th of April Hooker began his grand movement over the 
Rappahannock. His great numerical force enabled him to divide hia 
army, and yet to maintain his superiority at all points. His left wing, 
under Sedgwick, crossed at Fredericksburg, intending to attack and 
occupy the heights above tlie town, and seize the railway to Richmond. 
Meanwhile the stronger portion of his army crossed the river some miles 
above Fredericksburg, at the United States', Ely's, and Germania fords, 
and began to move toward Chancellorsville — the name of a place marked 
by a large house, formerly a tavern, and a few out-houses, about eleven 
miles above Fredericksburg, and about four miles south of the point of 
confluence of the Rapidan and the Raj^pahannock. On the 30th April, 
having got all his forces across the river, he issued a flaming address 
announcing that " the operations of the last three da3^s have determined 
that our enemy must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind their de 
fences and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction 
awaits him." So confident was he of success that he declared that Lee's 
army was " the property of the Army of the Potomac." Indeed, his 
chief concern appears to have been to cut off Lee's retreat ; and as his 
army crossed the river, the cavalry was to move around the Confederate 
position, one body under Averill, marching on Gordonsville, the other 
under Stoneman, interposing between Lee's army and Richmond, to cut 
the lines of rail and destroy his communications. The disposition of 
forces was such that the Northern newspapers declared that it was at 
once conclusive of the fate of Lee and of the Confederacy itself. Never 

combinations. Our experience proved this ; for both Grant and Sherman came very near sharing 
the fate of many that preceded them. Nothing but the President's friendship and tenacity saved 
the former after the battle of Pittsburgh Landing. His overthrow was determined on ; wliile the 
latter was removed from the department of Kentucliy, as a crazy man. Great by nature, they 
were fortunately liept v/here tliey could grow to the new and strange condition of things, and the 
magnitude of the struggle into which we had been thrown. If the process of changing com- 
manders the moment they did not keep pace with the extravagant expectations of the country, and 
equally extravagant predictions of the Government, had been continued, we should have been 
floundering i,o this day amid chaos and uncertainty." 



BATTLE OF CHANCELLOKSVILLE, 373 

were such strains of exultation heard in New York and Washington since 
the first field of Manassas, The common conversation was that the Con- 
federates were between two fires ; that Hooker had them just where he 
wanted them ; that they could not retreat ; that they would be annihi- 
lated ; that " the rebellion " was nearly at an end. 

Gen, Lee was certainly now in the most trying situation of the war. 
He was out-numbered by an enemy, whose force, compared with his own, 
was — as we have the precise statement of Gen. Lee himself — as ten to 
three / and he was threatened by two attacks, the inferiour of which — that 
of Sedgwick at Fredericksburg — was equal in numbers to his whole army. 
Despite desertions and the difiiculties of the recruiting service, the strength 
of the Federal army operating in Northern Yirginia had been kept up to 
about 150,000 men. Gen. Lee had less than 50,000 men. He had been 
compelled to detach nearly a third of the army with which he had fought 
at Fredericksburg to confront demonstrations of the enemy on the coasts 
of Yirginia and North Carolina ; and Longstreet had been sent to com- 
mand the department which included Richmond and its vicinity, together 
with the State of North Carolina, placed under the immediate supervision 
of Gen. D. H. Hill. 

There was nothing more remarkable about the great Confederate com- 
mander than his cheerful self-possession, his calm, antique courage in the 
most trying and terrible circumstances of life. There was no expression 
of uneasiness on his part ; no sign of dismay in the calm, grand face ; and 
the quiet and collected orders which he gave, alone indicated a movement 
almost unexampled in its daring to crush the enemy whose numbers had 
enveloped him. He watched the movement of Sedgwick at Fredericks- 
burg, as well as the one higher up the river under Hooker, until he had 
penetrated the enemy's design, and seen the necessity of making a rapid 
division of his own forces to confront him on two difi'erent fields. 

On the 29th of April, Gen. Lee drew back his army in the direction of 
Chancellorsville, leaving Early's division to guard Marye's Heights at 
Fredericksburg. At Chancellorsville he learned from Gen. Anderson, 
who, with two brigades — Posey's and Mahone's — had been guarding the 
upper fords of the river, that the main body of the Federal army was ad- 
vancing from that direction, and threatened his left rear. A force nearly 
one hundred thousand strong was on what had formerly been the left rear 
of the Confederates and was now the front. Taking from the account the 
forces left at Fredericksburg, Lee was out-numbered nearly three to one. 
His army consisted of Jackson's three divisions and two of Longstreet's 
former coi-ps — McLaw's and Anderson's. He had in his rear SedgM'ick's 
force, which equalled in strength his whole army ; and it appeared, indeed, 
that he would be crushed, or forced to retreat with both flanks exposed along 
the liichmond rail, which was abeady at the mercy of Stoneman's cavalry 



374 THE LOST CAUSE, 

On tlie 1st of May Hooker ordered an advance to be made from Chan- 
cellors"ville in the direction of Fredericksburg. At the close of the day 
his army held the ground from the neighbourhood of Banks' Ford 
to Chancellorsville, and thence with the riglit thrown back, covered the 
road to Germania Ford. But while Gen. Lee kept the enemy amused this 
dav by several attacks and feints, preparations were in progress for a flank 
inarch, in which the terrible Stonewall Jackson was to try again the suc- 
cess of his favourite movements. 

The flank march of Jackson commenced at night ; his corps consisting 
of three divisions, under A. P. Hill, Rodes, and Trimble. He was directed 
to move by a road behind the line-of-battle to the road that led to Ger- 
mania Ford, where the extreme right of the Federal army — Howard's corps 
— crested. The route lay through the Wilderness, a district of country 
covered with scrubby oaks and a thick, tangled undergrowth. Availing 
himself of its cover, Jackson marched around the right flank of Hooker's 
army, without that general having any knowledge of the critical move- 
ment which was in progress almost within reach of his guns. E'ear sunset 
of the 2d of May, he was in position at Wilderness Church. The two 
divisions of McLaw and Anderson kept up a succession of feints on Hook- 
er's front, while Jackson, with stealthy and alert movement, prepared to 
fall like a raging tiger upon his flank. 

But few hours of day-light were left when Jackson commenced his 
attack. It was sudden and furious. Marching rapidly from the direction 
of Germania Ford, he fell suddenly on Howard's corps in the forest. The 
yell of his soldiers was the only signal of attack. The whole coi-ps of the 
enemy was broken ; it retreated in confusion and dismay ; in vain Hooker 
interposed himself to check the flight ; his right wing was being fiercely 
driven down upon Anderson's and McLaw's sturdy veterans, and the fate 
of his army hung in a balance. 

Presently there was a halt in the pursuit. The enemy had succeeded 
in rallying some of his artillery near a stone wall directly in the line of 
the retreat. Then Jackson, in company with a number of his own and a 
part of A. P. Hill's staff, rode forward to reconnoitre, and proceeded 
beyond the front line of skirmishers. When he had finished his observa- 
tions, he rode back in the twilight to rejoin his men, that he might order 
a fresh attack. A North Carolina regiment mistook the party, as they 
galloped through the foliage, for the enemy. Some one cried out " Caval- 
ry," " charge ! " and immediately the regiment fired. Jackson fell, struck 
by three balls, two through the left arm, and another penetrating the palm 
of the right hand. He was placed on a litter ; one of the bearers was shot 
down by the enemy's skirmishers ; the General, falling, received a severe 
contusion of the side, and was for two hours nearly pulseless from the 
shock. For five minutes he lay actually within the line of the Federal 



BATTLE OF CHANCELLOKSVILLE. 375 

pkirmisliors, and under a heavy fire of artillery. Some of his men becom- 
ing aware of his danger, ruslied forward, and phicked, from the terrible 
fire of artillery, the prostrate form of their beloved commander. He waa 
placed in an ambulance, and carried to the field hospital at Wilderness 
Run. 

With Jackson's fall the impetus of the Confederate attack ceased. 
Gen. Stuart, who succeeded to the command, renewed the fight at nine 
o'clock, and continued it until the enemy's right had been doubled in on 
his centre in and around Chancellorsville. But the fiery energy of Jackson 
was wanting to carry forward the troops, and to make what was already 
a severe repulse of tlie enemy a terrible and irremediable disaster. 

A messenger was despatched to Gen. Lee, with the intelligence of the 
wounding of his great lieutenant. He found the General on a bed of 
straw about four o'clock in the morning. He told him that Jackson was 
severely wounded, and that it had been his intention to press the enemy 
next day — Sunday — if he had not fallen. Gen. Lee quietly said, " These 
people shall be pressed to-day." The grand, simple commander never had 
any other name for the enemy than " these people." He rose from his 
bed of straw, partook of his simple fare of ham and cracker, sallied forth, 
and made such dispositions as rendered that Sabbath-day a blessed one for 
the Confederacy. 

At day-break, on the 3d, the three divisions of Jackson's old corps 
advanced to the attack. Meanwhile Anderson's division was pushed for- 
ward by Gen. Lee to assault the strongly-entrenched position of the enemy 
in front of Chancellorsville. On one side the Federals were being forced 
back in the direction of Chancellorsville. On the other side Anderson's 
men pressed through the woods, over the fields, up the hills, into the very 
mouths of the enemy's guns, and forced him to take shelter behind a 
second line of entrenchments in rear of Chancellorsville. There were 
ladies at Hooker's headquarters, in the large house which gave the name 
to the battle-field. They were taken away by one of Hooker's staff, as the 
firing became hot. One of the ladies fainted. It was a forlorn sight to 
see that troupe piis:?ing through the Federal lines at such a time. Soon 
after they left, the house, which Avas a large and elegant structure, took 
fire, and burned to the gi'ound. Hooker's headquarters were transferred 
to the rear, and his crippled army, surrounded on all sides, except toward 
the river, was anxious now only for retreat. 

It was ten o'clock in the morning. The capture or destruction of 
Hooker's army now appeared certain. But just then news was received 
that Sedgwick, who had crossed the river at Fredericksburg, had taken 
Marye's Heights, which had been held by Barksdale's brigade, less than 
two thousand men, and six pieces of the Washington Artillery. The hill 
was fl.anked, and its brave defenders, who had held it against three 



376 THE LOST CAUSE. 

assaults, were cut off from their supports, and compelled to surrender 
Gen. Early, finding that Sedgwick had gained this position on his left, and 
was pressing forward his forces towards Chancellorsville, withdrew, and 
took up a position near Salem Church, about five miles from Fredericks- 
burg, where he threw up some slight field-works. 

The movement of Sedgwick made it necessary for Gen. Lee to arrest 
the pursuit of Hooker, and caused him to send back towards Fredericks- 
burg the division of McLaw to support Early and check the enemy's 
advance. On the evening of the 3d, Sedgwick's advanced troops were 
driven back without difficulty. On the 4th the battle was renewed. The 
enemy was evidently attempting to establish communication with Hooker 
along the river road, and for this purpose had massed a heavy force 
against McLaw's left. A portion of Anderson's force was marched fifteen 
miles to his support ; but Gen. Lee, who had come upon the field, having 
discovered the enemy's design, ordered Anderson to unite with Early, so 
as to attack that part of the enemy's line which he had weakened by his 
demonstration on McLaw, and thus threaten his communication with 
Fredericksburg. The combined attack was made just before smiset. 
Sedgwick's men hardly waited to receive it ; they fled precipitately 
towards Banks' Ford ; and during the night they recrossed the river in the 
condition of an utterly defeated and demoralized army. 

Thus, on the night of the 4th of May ended the remarkable series of 
battles on the lines of the Rappahannock. There had been three distinct 
engagements : that of the Wilderness, where Jackson succeeded in turning 
the enemy's flank ; that most properly called the battle of Chancellorsville, 
around which point the enemy centred and made his best fight ; and that of 
Salem Church which closed with Sedgwick's rout and retreat across the river. 

The enemy was now driven from every point around Fredericksburg, 
and it but remained to make short work of Hooker at United States Ford. 
That commander, cowed and hemmed in within his straitened lines by a 
few Confederate divisions, had scarcely fired a gun while Sedgwick's 
corps, a few miles oft", was being overwhelmed and driven back in dis- 
graceful confusion. He called a council of war, and determined to retreat. 
The night of the 5th aSbrded him the opportunity ; there was a drenching 
storm of wind and rain ; pontoons were laid ; the several corps crossed 
the river ; and the next morning the enemy's whole force was over the 
river, and on the march to its former camps at Falmouth,* 

* It is curious to notice the hardy falsehoods of official dispatches. Although Hooker had sus- 
tained one of the worst defeats in the war, he issued the following rubbish in a congratulatory 
address (!) to his army : 

" General Order, No. 49. 

" The MajorGeneral Commanding tenders to the army his congratulations on its achievements 
of the last seven days. K it has not accomplished all that was expected, the reasons are welt 



BATTLE OF CHANCELLORS VILLE. 377 

The loss of the enemy was terrible. We had taken nearly eight thou 
sand prisoners ; Northern accounts stated Sedgwick's loss at five thousand ; 
that of Hooker in killed and wounded was probably twice as large ; and 
but little is risked in putting all his losses at twenty-five thousand men. 
Gen. Lee's loss was less than ten thousand. He had won one of the most 
remarkable victories on record ; illustrated the highest quality of general- 
ship, the self-possession and readiness of a great commander, and con- 
firmed a reputation now the first in war. Indeed, this reputation had not 
pro^jerly commenced in the Seven Days Battles around Richmond ; for it 
was only when Lee moved out to the lines of the Rappahannock that there 
commenced the display of his great tactical abilities. He had now fought 
the most difiicult and brilliant battle of the war. Amid all the achieve- 
ments and wonders of his future career, Chancellorsville must ever remain 
the master-piece of his military life, 

Now and then there were developed in the South certain facts and 
figures concerning the war, ofiicially verified, and so unlike the stories of 
the newspaper and the printed catchpenny, that the public mind was 
startled from former convictions, and put on a new train of inquiry. This 
was especially so with reference to the unequal match of force in the war. 
The Southern people had a general impression that they were largely out- 
numbered in the contest ; that the North was greatly superiour in men, 
material, and all the apparatus of conquest. But their notions of this in- 
equality were vague, and in no instance came up to the full measure of 

known to the army. It is sufficient to say, that they were of a character not to be foreseen or pre- 
vented by human sagacity or resources. 

" In withdrawing from the south bank of the Rappahannock before delivering a general battle 
to our adversaries, the army has given renewed evidence of its confidence in itself and its fidelity 
to the principles it represents. 

" By fighting at a disadvantage, we would have been recreant to our trust, to ourselves, to our 
cause, and to our country. Professedly loyal and conscious of its strength, the Army of the Poto- 
mac will give or decline battle whenever its interests or honour may command it. 

" By the celerity and secrecy of our movements, our advance and passage of the river was un- 
■ sisputed, and on our withdrawal not a rebel dared to follow us. The events of the last week may 
well cause the heart of every officer and soldier of the army to swell with pride. 

" We have added new laurels to our former renown. We have made long marches, crossed 
rWers, surprised the enemy in his entrenchments, and wherever we have fought we have inflicted 
heavier blows than those we have received. 

" We have taken from the enemy 5,000 prisoners and fifteen colours, captured seven pieces of 
artillery, and placed hors de combat 18,000 of our foe's chosen troops. 

" We have destroyed his depots, filled with vast amounts of stores, damaged his communica- 
tions, captured prisoners within the fortifications of his capital, and filled his country with fear and 
consternation. 

" We have no other regret than that caused by the loss of our brave companions, and in thig 
we are consoled by the conviction that they have fallen in the holiest cause ever submitted to the 
%rbitration of battle. 

" Bv command of Major-General HOOKER, 

" S. Williams, Assistant- Adjt.-General." 



378 ' THE LOST CAUSE. 

the JSTortliern advantage in this respect. It was the policy of the Confed- 
erate Government to keep all military matters secret, and to give, even to 
our own people, exaggerated impressions of the strength of our forces in 
the field. Our armies were always popularly accounted much larger than 
they really were, and a pleasant delusion was maintained, until some occa- 
sion would bring out official figures, and shock the public with surprise ■ 
Who would have supposed, until Beauregard's official figures were pub- 
lished, that the army of the First Manassas numbered less than thirty 
thousand men, and that five Confederate regiments on that field held in 
check, for two hours, a column of fifteen thousand Federal infantry ? 
Who would have imagined, looking at the newspapers of the day, that 
Albert Sidney Jolmston, who was popularly expected, in the first year of 
the war, to take Cincinnati, and to march to the Northern Lakes, never 
had more than twenty-odd thousand men to meet all the emergencies of the 
early campaign in Kentucky and Tennessee ? Who would have believed, 
unless on the official authority of the great Confederate Chieftain himself, 
that Gen. Lee whipped " the finest army on the planet,^'' under Hooker, with 
less than one-third his force ? These are matters of official history, and stand 
in sharp contrast to the swollen narratives of the newspaper, and in singular 
relations to the Northern assertion of martial prowess in the war. 

While the great victory of Chan cell orsville was causing joy and con- 
gratulation throughout the Confederacy, Gen. Stonewall Jackson lay 
dying at a small farm-house, a few miles from where he had led his last 
and most famous attack. No one had supposed that his wounds would 
prove mortal ; it had already been announced from his physician that 
amputation had been decided upon, and he would probably very soon 
thereafter be in a condition to be removed to Richmond. But while prep- 
arations were being made there to receive the distinguished suflerer, there 
came the appalling news that an attack of pneumonia had supervened, 
and that there were no hopes of his recovery. He expired on Suuday, the 
eighth day of his suffering. He had declared : " If I live it will be for 
the best — and if I die, it will be for the best ; God knows and directs all 
things for the best." His last moments were mostly occupied with lively 
expressions of that trust and confidence in God, which had marked his life 
for many years, and which he had carried into all the details of his wonder- 
ful career. There were various reports of his last words. They were not 
religious ones. His last utterance in the delirium that preceded death 
was : " Tell Major Hawks to send forward provisions to the men. Let us 
cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees." And thus 
passed over the dark river and into eternal rest, the spirit of the great 
man, whose exploits had been amongst the most brilliant in the military 
history of the world, and whose character must ever remain an interesting 
subject for the student of mankind. 



CHAEACTER OF " STONEWALL " JACKSON. 379 



CHARACTER OP " STONEWALL " JACKSON. 

There was probably no more ambitious man in the Southern Con- 
federacy than " Stonewall " Jackson. Tlie vulgar mind thinks that it 
easily discovers those who are the ambitious men in a community. It 
readily designates as sucli those who aspire to office and public positions, 
who seek sensations, com't notoriety in newspapers, and hold up their 
hands for the applause of the multitude. But ambition, in its true and 
noble sense, is very different from these coarse bids for popular favour. 
There is a class of apparently quiet minds which, choosing seclusion and 
mystery, and wearing an air of absence, or even misanthropy, moving in 
their daily walks with an appearance of profound unconcern, are yet 
living for histoiy, and are daily and nightly consumed with the fires of 
ambition. It is this sort of ambition which cherishes and attempts ideals ; 
which is founded on a deep and unconquerable self-esteem ; and which 
is often haughtily and even grimly silent, from a consciousness of its own 
powers, or an ever present belief in its destiny. 

Of such an order of ambition those who knew Gen. Jackson best 
declare that he was singularly possessed. He believed in his destiny, 
whatever religious name he chose to attach to that transcendental and 
ravishing sentiment ; he was fond of repeating to his intimate friends that 
" mystery was the secret of success ; " and because he went about his 
work with a silent and stern manner, that was no proof of the opinion 
of the populace, that he was simply a machine of conscientious motives, 
with no sentiment in his composition but that of duty. 

It is not unfrequently the experience of truly great men, that they 
have to live through a period of utter misapprehension of their worth, 
and often of intense ridicule. Such was the painful experience of Gen. 
Jackson. At the Virginia Military School at Lexington, where he was a 
professor before the war, he was thought to be stupid and harmless, and 
he was often the butt of the academic wit of that institution. Col. Gillem, 
who taught tactics there, was taken to be the military genius of the place, 
and afterwards gave evidence of the correctness of this appreciation by 
actually losing, during the war, in the mountains of Northwestern Yir- 
ginia the only regiment that he was ever trusted to command. At the 
battle of Manassas, despite the critical and splendid service which Jack- 
son did there (for he stayed the retreat in the rear of the Robinson House, 
and in the subsequent charge pierced the enemy's centre), his stiff and odd 
figure drew upon him the squibs of all the newspaper correspondents on 
the field. His habit of twisting his head, and interpolating " Sir " in all 
his remarks was humorously described in the Charleston Mercury. At a 



380 



THE LOST CAUSE. 



later period of his military career, when he made his terrible wintry 
march in 1861-2, from Winchester to Bath and Eomney, and became 
involved in differences with Gen, Loring, it was actually reported that ho 
was insane. A colonel came to Richmond with the report that Jackson 
had gone mad ; that his mania was that a familiar spirit had taken posses- 
sion of a portion of his body ; and that he was in the habit of walking by 
himself and holding audible conversations with a mysterious being. 

It was about this time that Gen. Jackson came under the fitful cloud 
of President Davis' displeasure ; and he was so much affected by the 
course of the Richmond authorities towards him in his affair with Loring-, 
that, at one time, he determined to resign. The extreme sensibility of his 
nature, and his ardent ambition^ were unmasked in the letters he wrote his 
wife, alluding to the then probable close of his military career, and sub- 
mitting to what he supposed " the will of God " in this abrupt termination 
of his hopes. But it was not decreed by Providence that the Confederate 
cause should then lose the services of Jackson, and its chief ornament be 
plucked from it, and its great pillar of strength cast down through a pal- 
tiy official embroilment in Richmond. By the earnest persuasions of 
Governor Letcher and others. Gen. Jackson was induced to withdraw his 
letter of resignation ; and that sword which might have been drojDped in 
an obscure quarrel was yet to carve out the most brilliant name in 
the war. 

The fame of Jackson was first secured, and permanently erected in 
the popular heart, by his splendid and ever-memorable campaign in the 
valley of Virginia, in the spring of 1802. In that campaign, as we have 
seen, in the period of three weeks, he fought four battles ; recovered 
Winchester ; captured four thousand prisoners ; secured several million 
dollars' worth of stores ; chased Banks' army out of Virginia and across 
the Potomac, and accomplished a list of deeds that threw the splendour 
of sunlight over the fortunes of the Confederacy, and broke, at the critical 
moment, the heaviest shadows of defeat and misfortune that had so far 
befallen them. In the Seven Days Battles the name of Jackson again 
rose like a star. And yet it was to gather new effulgence, when the 
names of Second Manassas and the Wilderness were to be inscribed, alike 
on the banners of the Confederacy and the escutcheon of his own fame. 

Jackson's intense religious character has naturally come in for a large 
share of public admiration and curiosity. To his merits as a commander, 
he added the virtues of an active, humble, consistent Christian, restraining 
profanity in his camp, welcoming army colporteurs, distributing tracts, 
and anxious to have every regiment in his army supplied with a chaplain. 
Prayer-meetings and " revivals " were common occurrences in his camp, 
and in these he was quite as active and conspicuous as in the storm and 
action of battle. It was said that he treated the itinerant preachers and 



CHARACTEK OF " STONEWALL " JACKSON. 331 

" circuit-riders " who flocked to Lis camp with much more distinction 
than any other visitors ; and the story is told how, on one occasion, when 
the horse driven by one of these itinerants balked at a hill, Jackson him- 
self insisted upon leading and assisting the animal up the acclivity in the 
astonished sight of his whole army. 

His nature was epicene. AVe but seldom see a combination of femi- 
nine tenderness with a really strong will ; but when we do, we see masked 
iron in the man, and discover the rarest and loftiest type of greatness. 
Such a combination was most sincere and striking in Jackson. An 
authentic anecdote is told of him, illustrating his extreme tenderness to 
whatever w^as weak or helpless. Stopping at the house of a friend, one 
wintry night, he slu)wed much concern for a little delicate girl of the 
family, and counselled them to see that her bed was comfortable. Aftei' 
the family had retired, Jackson was seen to leave his chamber and ap- 
proach the bedside of the little girl, where for some moments he busied 
himself tucking the bedclothes around her, and making the little creature 
as snug as possible. — The large, rough hand that did this gentle task, was 
the same that wielded the thunderbolt of battle, and that cleft like flam- 
ing lightning the hosts of the Wilderness. 

Jackson's habits in the fleld were those of almost superhuman endur- 
ance. Neither heat nor cold appeared to make the slightest impression 
upon him. He cared nothing for good quarters and dainty fare. He 
often slept on the ground, wrapped in his blanket. His vigilance was 
marvellous ; he never seemed to sleep ; he let nothing pass without his 
personal scrutiny. His active determination and grim energy in the field, 
were scarcely to be expected from one who, in preceding years, had been 
a quiet professor in a college of youths. As for the rapidity of his 
marches, that was something portentous.* 

* An ofBcer on the staff of Jackson, at the time he was ordered to the Shenandoah Valley, 
writes as follows, in a pleasant private letter, of his experiences of the campaign, and of the pecu- 
liarities of the commander : 

" When we were ordered up the Valley with old Jackson, it was considered to be a source of 
congratulation to all for going into active service ; but, believe me, I would have willingly gone 
back into winter-quarters again after a week's trial, for Jackson is the greatest marcher in the 
world. When we first moved up here, our orders were for a march to Charlestown ; next day we 
moved back to Winchester ; in a few days again back to Charlestown ; and thence, from one place to 
another, until at last I began to imagine that we were commanded by some peripatetic philosophical 
madman, whose forte was pedestrianism. With little or no baggage, we are a roving, hungi-y, 
hardy lot of fellows. ' Stonewall ' may be a very fine old gentleman, and an honest, good-tempered, 
industrious man, but I should admire him much more in a state of rest than continually seeing him 
moving in front. And such a dry old stick, too ! As for uniform, he has none — his wardrobe isn't 
worth a dollar ; and his horse is quite in keeping, being a poor, lean animal, of little spirit or 
activity. And don't he keep his aides moving about ! Thirty miles' ride at night through the mud 
is nothing of a job ; and if they don't come up to time, I'd as soon face the devil, for Jackson takes 
no excuses when duty is on hand. lie is solemn and thoughtful, speaks but little, and always in a 



382 THE LOST CAUSE. 

The London Times, a journal whose judgments of men were taken in 
the cotemporary world almost as the sentences of history, frequently 
compared Jackson to Kapoleon. " He was," said this great organ of 
European opinion, " one of the most consummate Generals that this cen 
tury has produced. * * * That mixture of daring and judgment, 
which is the mark of ' Heaven-born ' Generals distinguished him beyond 
any man of his time. Although the young Confederacy has been illus- 
trated by a number of eminent soldiers, yet the applause and devotion 
of his countrymen, confirmed by the judgment of European nations, 
have given the first place to Jackson. The military feats he accom- 
plished moved the minds of the people with astonishment, which 
it is only given to the highest genius to produce. The blows he 
struck at the enemy were as terrible and decisive as those of Bonaparte 
himself." 

There can be no doubt in history of the military genius of Jackson. 
There is a certain ignorant idea of genius as a thoughtless and careless 
disposition of mind, which gets its inspirations without trouble, and never 
descends to actual labour. Such was not the genius of Jackson ; and such 
is not true genius. He was an active, laborious thinker ; he wrestled with 
great thoughts ; he had his silent calculations ; but having once appre- 
hended the true thought, and got to a point in his meditations, he 
acted with a rapidity, a decision, and a confidence, that scorned 
hesitation, refused longer to think, and took the appearance of im- 
petuous inspiration. 

Danger, in a certain sense, intoxicated him. But it did not produce 
that intoxication which confuses the mind, or makes it giddy with a crowd 
of images. It was that sort of intoxication which strings the nerve, stimu- 
lates the brain, concentrates the faculties, and gives a consciousness of 
power that is for the moment irresistible. In battle, he was not much in 
motion ; but his eyes glowed ; his face was blazoned with the fire of the 
conflict ; his massive jaw stifl'ened ; his voice rang out sharp and clear ; 
every order and remark was as quick and pertinent as if it had been 
studied for hours. One could scarcely recognize in this figure of intense 
activity, all alive, with every faculty at play, the man who used to occupy 
himself with rambling soliloquies in the rear of his tent ; who presented the 
appearance of an inanimate figure-head in his pew at the Presbyterian 

calm, decided tone ; and from what he says there is no appeal, for he seems to know every hole and 
comer of this valley as if he had made it, or, at least, as if it had been designed for his own use^ 
He knows all the distances, all the roads, even the cow-paths through the woods, and goat-tracks 
along the hills. I have frequently seen him approach in the dead of night, and enter into conversa- 
tions with sentinels, and ride off through the darkness. In my opinion, Jackson will assuredly make 
bis mark in this war, for his untiring industry and eternal watchfulness must tell upon a numerous 
enemy unacquainted with the country, and incommoded by large baggage-trains." 



CHAEACTEB OF " STONEWALL " JACKSON. 383 

churcli in Lexington ; and who often got up out of his camp-bed at nighl 
to spend hours in silent prayer and meditation. 

It may readily be imagined that the wonderful career of Jackson and 
his personal eccentricities drew upon him a crowd of apocryphal anecdotes 
in the newspapers. Some of them were very absurd. His person was as 
variously represented in newspaper paragraphs as if, instead of being 
familiar to thousands, he inhabited the dim outlines of another century. 
One journal described him as an absurdly ugly man with red hair ; 
another gave his portrait as that of an immense brain, and features on 
which nature had stamped the patent of nobility. One newspaper cor- 
res]3ondent declared that he always wore the brim of his cap on the mid- 
dle of his nose. Another declared that he was an execrable rider, and 
looked like a loose jumping-jack on horseback. 

There is a popular disposition to discover something curious or gro- 
tesque in great men. But there was really but little of this sort to be 
discovered in Jackson, and scarcely anything that could be pointed out aa 
objects of vulgar curiosity. It is true his figure was queer and clumsy ; 
but the features of his face were moulded in forms of simple grandeur ; 
and its expression was as unaffected as that of Lee himself. He was not 
an ugly man. The vulgar might call him such ; and the newspaper pas- 
sion for caricature did so represent him. Kor did he have in face or 
figure those n:^rks which the silly admiration of woman expects to find in 
military heroes. He did not wear long, greasy hair falling over his shoul- 
ders ; he did not stand in dramatic attitudes ; he did not keep his eyes 
unnaturally stretched ; he did not thrust out his chest, as if anxious to 
impose himself upon public attention. His features were singularly sim- 
ple and noble. A broad forehead, rising prominently over his eyes, and 
retreating at that easy angle which gives a certain majesty to the face, 
covered a massive brain ; his nostrils were unusually large ; his jaw 
heavy and well-set ; and, although his features were coarse, they were 
combined in that expression of dignity and power which, to the intelligent 
and appreciative, even among women, is the greatest charm of the mascu- 
line face. 

The death of Jackson cast a shadow on the fortunes of the Con- 
federacy, that reached to the catastrophe of the war. It was not only a 
loss to his country ; it was a calamity to the world : a subtraction from 
the living generation of genius : the extinction of a great light in tlie tem- 
ples of Christianity. The proposition was eagerly made in the South to 
erect to his memory a stately monument. The State of Virginia sent an 
artist to Europe to execute his statue. Thousands followed him to the 
grave, and consecrated it with tributes of affection and the testimonies 
of devotion. Who, then, regarding this fervour of admiration and 
gratitude, could have supposed that the Southern mind could ever 



THE LOST CATJSE. 

384 




household effects "^ ^^^^l%tZs\.n committed to the U-ials and 
of an auctioneer, and tlie tamuy o 
chances of poverty ! 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

VICKSBTJEG, THE SECOND PRIZE OF THE -ffAE. — GEN. GRANT. — WHAT HIS PEESISTENOT WAS 
■WORTH. — HIS NEW SCHEME OF ATTACK. — TWO PARTS OF THE ENTERPRISE. — PORTEe's 

GUNBOATS RUN THE BATTERIES. GRANT'S MARCH FROM MILLIKEN's BEND. — BLINDNESS 

OF GEN. PEMBERTON AT VICKSBURG. — ANTECEDENTS AND CHARAOTEK OF THIS COM- 
mander. — his extreme incompetency. — president davis blamed. — his caprice and 
obstinacy. — grant crosses the mississippi and moves towards poet gibson. — gen. 
Johnston's telegram to pemberton. — critical opportunity of the campaign. — 

PEMBERTON REFUSES TO USE IT, AND DISREGARDS JOHNSTON's DESPATCH. — BATTLE OF 
port GIBSON. — EXTRAORDINARY VALOUR OF BOWEn's COMMAND. — GRANT TURNS GRAND 
GULF AND MOVES UPON JACKSON.— GEN. JOHNSTON's ARRIVAL AT JACKSON. — SITUATION 
AND STRENGTH OF THE CONFEDERATE FORCES. — EVACUATION OF JACKSON. — JOHNSTON 
OFFERS A SECOND OPPORTUNITY OF ATTACK TO PEMBERTON. — THE LATTER DISOBEYS THE 

ORDER AND COMMITS A FATAL ERROUE. — SHERMAn's INCENDIARY RECORD IN JACKSON. 

HIS USE OP THE FIRE-BRAND. — GRANT FORCES BATTLE UPON PEMBEETON. — BATTLE OF 
baker's CEEEK. — TREMENDOUS EXERTIONS OF STEVENSON's DIVISION. — GEN. LORINO 
FAILS TO SUPPORT HIM, REMAINS INACTIVE, AND IS CUT OFF IN THE RETREAT. — PEMBER- 
TOn's new POSITION UPON THE BIG BLACK. — ITS STRENGTH. — IT IS SHAMEFULLY ABAN- 
DONED. — DISGRACEFUL RETREAT OF PEMBERTON's ARMY. — THE FATE OF VICKSBURG VIR- 
TUALLY DECIDED AT THE BIG BLACK. — GEN. JOHNSTON ORDERS THE EVACUATION OF 

VICKSBURG. — PEMBERTON ENTRAPPED THERE. — SIEGE AND SUltRENDER OF VICKSBURG. 

CONFIDENCE OF THE GARRISON RESTORED. — PROSPECT OF RELIEF FROM JOHNSTON. — HOW 
IT WAS VISIONARY. — TWO ASSAULTS OF THE ENEMY REPULSED. — ^PAINFUL OPERATIONS OP 
SIEGE. — SUFFERINGS OF THE GARRISON. — JOHNSTON HAS SOME HOPE OF EXTRICATING THE 

GARRISON. — Taylor's attack and repulse at milliken's bend. — pemberton's de- 
spatch TO JOHNSTON. — THE REPLY : " SOMETHING MAY YET BE DONE TO SAVE VICKS- 
BURG." — JOHNSTON PREPARES TO ATTACK ON TTH JULY. — PEMBERTON SURRENDERS ON 

FOURTH OF JULY. — HIS CONFERENCE WITH GRANT. A TERRIBLE DAy's WORK. EXTENT 

OF THE DISASTER TO THE CONFEDERATE CAUSE. — SURRENDER OF PORT HUDSON. — OTHER 
EVENTS IN THE REGION OF THE MISSISSIPPI CONNECTED WITH THE FALL OF VICKSBURG. — 
OPERATIONS IN THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. — BATTLE OF HELENA. — OBJECT OF GEN. HOLMES' 

MOVEMENT ON HELENA. AN EXTRAORDINARY MARCH. — AN EXTRAORDINARY COUNCIL OP 

WAR. — GEN. PRICE PROTESTS AGAINST AN ATTACK. — HE 13 ORDERED TO TAKE " GRAVE- 
YARD " FORT. — HE SUCCEEDS. — THE OTHER ATTACKS FAIL. — DISASTROUS RETREAT OF GEN. 
HOLMES. — THE CAMPAIGN IN LOWER LOUISIANA. — GEN. TAYLOR's CAPTURE OF BRASSEAR 
CITY AND ITS FORTS. — HIS OPERATIONS IN THE LAFOURCHE COUNTRY. — HIS SUCCESSEa 
NEUTRALIZED BY THE FALL OF VICKSBURG AND PORT HUDSON.— BANKS RETURNS TO NEW 
ORLEANS AND THE ENEMY HOLDS THE ENTIRE LINE OF THE MISSISSIPPL 

25 



586 THE LOST CAUSE. 



The object of the enemy's operations, second to Eichmond, was dis- 
tinctly the possession of Vicksburg and the opening of the wliole length 
of the Mississippi River. Enormous efforts had been made to obtain these 
two great prizes. Five attempts upon Richmond had failed. Three at 
tempts upon Vicksburg — that of Porter's fleet ; that of Sherman's army ; 
and that of Grant, which may be designated as an attempt to force a pas- 
sage to the rear of the town, including the project of a canal across the 
isthmus and the enterprises known as the Yazoo Pass and Sunflower Ex- 
peditions — had accomplished nothing. Foiled again at Chancellorsville, in 
the great aim of the Virginia campaign, the enemy turned with renewed 
vigour upon the second object of the war, and public attention was im- 
mediately directed to the great campaign likely to decide the fate of the 
Mississippi Valley. 

Gen. Grant had already obtained a great reputation for persistency — a 
slight title to merit, it may be remarked, when a commander has at his 
disposal abundant means, and at his back a government so generous and 
rich as never to call its oflicers into account for the loss of life and of 
treasure in any case of ultimate success. He now proposed to change his 
plan of operations against Vicksburg. He determined to invest the town, 
and having turned the defences on the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers, to 
cut ofl' the defenders from all communication with the east. One part of 
the enterprise was to run Porter's gunboats and a number of transports 
past the works at Vicksburg ; while a land force, consisting of two corps, 
under Grant in person, should march from Milliken's Bend to Carthage, a 
distance of thirty-five miles, interrupted by marshes and streams. Both 
movements succeeded. On the 16th and 22d April, two fleets of gunboats 
and transports ran the batteries with insignificant disaster, and repeated the 
lesson that had been taught more than once in the war, that, unless where 
obstructions have been placed, steamers will run the gauntlet of almost 
any fire. By the last of April, Grant, having marched down the west 
bank of the river, and joined Porter's gunboats at Carthage, was ready to 
execute the next step in his scheme of attacking Vicksburg from the south- 
east. 

His adventure was a complete sui'prise to Gen. Pemberton at Vicks- 
burg. This commander, who had been appointed to what the Confed- 
erates designated as the department of Mississippi and East Louisiana, had 
been so blind as to suppose Grant's object was not Vicksburg, but Bragg's 
army in Tennessee, and as late as the middle of April, he had proposed to 
order troops to Tullahoma, under the delusion that Rosecrans would' be 
reinforced from Grant's army. The mistake was characteristic of a com- 
mander who was in no way qualified for the great trust to which he had 
been exalted. The appointment of Gen. Pemberton to the defence of 



CHAEACTEK OF GEN. PEMBEKTON. 387 

"Vicksbnrg "was an unfortunate one ; it was probably the most unpopular 
single act of President Davis, who was constantly startling tlie public by 
the most unexpected and grotesque . selections for the most important 
posts of the public service. Pemberton had not yet fought a battle in the 
war. He was a Pennsylvanian by birth ; he had been a major in the old 
United States service ; and from this inconsiderable rank, without a single 
record of meritorious service in the Confederacy, he had been raised by a 
stroke of President Davis' pen to the position of a lieutenant-general, and 
put in command of a post second in importance to the Confederate capital. 
He had previously had some uneventful commands at Norfolk and at 
Charleston. He was removed thence in consequence of frequent protests ; 
but in each instance with promotion, as if the President was determined to 
mark his contempt for a public opinion which did not appreciate his 
favourite, or hoped to inspire a dull brain by adding another star to his 
collar. He was sent to Vicksbnrg with a larger command and a more 
extensive field, to show eventually the accuracy of the public judgment as 
to his capacity even for subordinate positions. With armies so intelligent 
as those of the Confederacy, no man unfitted for command could long 
maintain their confidence and respect. He might intrench himself with all 
the forms and parade of the schools; but intelligent soldiers easily pene- 
trated the thin disguise, and distinguished between the pretender and the 
man of ability. So it was at Yicksburg. Pemberton had already given 
there early evidence of his unfitness for connnand. While Grant was 
assiduously engaged under his eye, for months, in preparing the powerful 
armament which was to spend its force on the devoted fortress, his adver- 
sary took no notice of the warning. The water batteries, which might 
have been strengthened, were afterwards found to be so imperfect as to 
inflict but slight damage on the gunboats, and permit the run of all the 
transports of a large army with equal impunity. The fortifications of 
Grand Gulf, where Grant was now making his next demonstration, had 
been neglected, until the tardy attempt rendered the accumulation of guns 
and stores there an easy prey to the enemy. Yicksbui-g, with an abun- 
dant country around it, had only two months' instead of twelve months' 
provisions. How was Pemberton engaged ? Immersed in official trifles, 
laboriously engaged in doing nothing, while the murmurs around him and 
the friction of events had developed personal characteristics which, with 
want of confidence of ofiicers and men, rendered him higlily unpopular. 
Of a captious and irritable nature, a narrow mind, the slave of the forms 
and fuss of the schools, Gen. Pemberton was one of those men whose idea 
of war began with a bureau of clothing and equij)ment, and ended with a 
field-day or dress-parade. Warning after warning was sounded ; but 
President Davis turned a deaf ear to them, not, perhaps, that he cared 
especially for Pemberton, but because his own vanity was so exacting that 



388 THE LOST CAUSE. 

even to question his infallibility of selection was an ofience not to be con« 
doned. 

Gen. Grant, having effected a junction with the gunboats below Vicks- 
burg, next determined to turn the works at Grand Gulf, which defended 
the mouth of the Big Black Kiver, by landing at a point lower down the 
river. Accordingly he marched by its right flank, crossed opposite Bruins- 
burg, and on the 30th April landed on the left bank, and immediately 
pushed forward towards Port Gibson, a small town near the mouth of the 
Big Black River. 

Gen. Pemberton, who appeared to have been at last aroused to a sense 
of the danger of his position, telegraphed the news of Grant's movement to 
Gen. Johnston, nominally commanding the Western armies, and then at 
Tullahoma with Bragg. He received orders to attack at once. Gen. 
Johnston despatched : " If Grant crosses the river, unite all your troops to 
beat him. Success will give back what was abandoned to win it." It 
was the critical opportunity of the campaign. Grant had landed with 
about 50,000 men. By drawing all his forces from different posts, leaving 
only enough in Vicksburg to answer Porter's chronic bombardment, Gen. 
Pemberton could have concentrated nearly 40,000 troops, and these, with 
the advantage of a difficult country, and with slight field-works, might at 
all events have delayed Grant until Vicksburg was provisioned, and Johns- 
ton had arrived with reinforcements. But we shall see tliat the bewil- 
dered commander, without the resolution to risk a decisive battle, com- 
mitted the unpardonable errour of allowing his army to be cut up in detail 
by an enemy with massed forces. 



BATTLE OF PORT GIBSON. 

The only Confederate force which was to meet the enemy's advance 
towards Port Gibson was a division of troops under Gen. Bowen. This 
brave and devoted officer had been left with a few thousand men to con- 
front an overwhelming force of the enemy, as Gen. Pemberton had insisted 
upon putting the Big Black River between the enemy and the bulk of his 
own forces, which he declared were necessary to cover Vicksburg. Gen. 
Bowen had fifty-five hundred men. He was opposed by the corps of Gen. 
McClernand, numbering probably twenty thousand men. An engagement 
ensued on the banks of a small stream, which crossed the road from Bruins- 
burg. The enemy, by the extraordinary valour and constancy of the 
small force of Confederates, was kept back for an entire day, until just 
before sunset Gen. Bowen was compelled to fall back, executing a retreat 
without confusion, and saving the bulk of his army. 

The position of Grand Gulf turned, and the battle of Fort Gibson won, 



GEN. Johnston's despatches to pemberton. 389 

Grant pushed his columD direct towards Jackson. Gen. Johnston reached 
Jackson on the night of the 13th May. He received there a despatch 
from Gen. Pemberton, dated 12th May, asking for reinforcements, as the 
enemy, in large force, was moving from the Mississippi, south of the Big 
Black, apparently toward Edwards's Depot, " which will be the battle- 
field, if I can forward sufficient force, leaving troops enough to secure the 
safety of the place." 

Before Johnston's arrival at Jackson, Grant, as we have seen, had 
beaten Gen. Bowen at Port Gibson, made good the landing of his army, 
occupied Grand Gulf, and was marching upon the Jackson and Yicks- 
burg Railroad. 

On reaching Jackson, Gen. Johnston found there the brigades of Gregg 
and Walker, reported at six thousand ; learned from Gregg that Maxcy's 
brigade was expected to arrive from Port Hudson the next day ; that 
Gen. Pemberton's forces, except the garrison of Port Hudson (five thou- 
sand) and of Yicksburg, were at Edwards's Dej^ot — the General's head- 
quarters at Bovina ; that four divisions of the enemy, under Sherman, 
occupied Clinton, ten miles west of Jackson, between Edwards's Depot and 
ourselves. Gen. Johnston was aware that reinforcements were on their 
way from the East, and that the advance of those under Gen. Gist would 
probably arrive the next day, and with Maxcy's brigade, swell his force to 
about eleven thousand. 

Upon this information he sent to Gen. Pemberton a despatch, inform- 
ing him of his arrival, and of the occupation of Clinton by a portion of 
Grant's army, urging the importance of re-establishing communications, 
and ordering him to come up, if practicable, on Sherman's rear at once, 
and adding : " To beat such a detachment would be of immense value. 
The troops here could co-operate. All the strength you can quickly 
assemble should be brought. Time is all-important." 

On the 14th May, the enemy advanced by the Raymond and Clinton 
roads upon Jackson. Johnston did not propose to defend the town ; he 
had no sufficient force to do so ; he therefore ordered Gregg and Walker 
to fall back slowly, offering such resistance to the march of the Federal 
columns as to allow time to remove or destroy the stores accumulated in 
Jackson. This work accomplished, Gen. Johnston retreated by the Can- 
ton road, from which alone he could form a junction with Pemberton. 

It will be perceived that Grant was now between the two Confederate 
armies ; but he was superiour in numbers not only to each, but to both 
united. Johnston had proposed the brilliant hazard of crushing an im- 
portant detachment of the enemy at Clinton, and had urged the para- 
mount necessity of re-establishing communications between the two Con- 
federate forces. Pemberton appears to have been completely blind to these 
onsiderations. In disobedience of the orders of his superiour, and in 



390 THE LOST CAUSE. 

opposition to the views of a majority of the council of war, composed of al. 
his generals present, before whom lie placed the subject, lie decided to 
make a movement by which the union with Jolmston would be impossible. 
It was a fatal errour. The irresolute commander had, at first, expected to 
fight at Edwards's Depot, being unwilling to separate himself furtlier from 
Yicksburg. When he received Johnston's order to march on Sherman's 
rear at Clinton, and when the council of wai , called by him, approved the 
movement, he hesitated, did not move for twenty-eight hours, and invented 
a compromise, in which equally abandoning his own preconceived plan 
of battle, and disobeying the orders of Gen. Johnston, he moved, not 
to risk an attack on Sherman, but in another direction towards Ray- 
mond, flattering himself that he was about 'to cut the enemy's com- 
munications. 

Tlie delay and aberration of Pemberton left Jackson at the mercy of 
the enemy, and opened the way to Vicksburg, On the 15th April Gen. 
Sherman's corps marched into Jackson. The incendiary record of this 
famous officer commenced here ; the first of his long list of conflagrations 
and jieculiar atrocities dates with the burning, the plunder, and sack of 
Jackson. The little town of two main streets, with detached villas, inhab- 
ited l>y wealthy planters, was surrendered to a soldiery licensed to rob, 
burn, and destroy. Private houses, the Catholic church, the hotel, the 
penitentiary, and a large cotton-factory were burned. As Sherman's 
troops marched out, a volume of smoke rose over the devoted town, Avhile 
here and there rolled up fiercely great masses of flame attesting the infer- 
nal work of the man who, not content, in the nineteenth century and in a 
civilized country, to fight with the sword, had taken a weapon from an- 
other age — in the fire-brand of the savage. 

Meanwhile Grant, having ascertained Pembcrton's movement, directed 
McClernand's and McPherson's corps to move by the Jackson and Yicks- 
burg railroad, and by the road from Raymond to meet him. Sherman 
had been ordered to evacuate Jackson and to take a similar direction. 
Pembcrton's disposable force consisted of seventeen thousand five hundred 
men. On the 16th May, while moving on the road to Raymond, a courier 
handed him a despatch from Gen. Johnston, stating that, as the attack on 
Sherman had failed, the only means by which a union could now be 
effected between the two forces, was that Pemberton should move directly 
to Clinton, whither Johnston had retired. An order of counter-march was 
issued. But already heavy skirmishing was going on in Pembcrton's 
front ; he found it impossible to extricate himself for a reverse movement • 
and his situation was such that he was compelled to give battle on the 
ground selected by the enemy. 



BATTLE OF BAKEE's CEEKK. 391 



BATTLE OF BAKEr's CKEEK. 



The Confederate line of battle was formed in a bend ol what waa 
known as Baker's Creek, across the Jackson and Yicksburg railroad. 
After a desultory fire, the battle commenced in earnest about noon ; 
Hovej's division attacking the centre of Pemberton's line, held by Steven- 
son's division, while two other divisions of the enemy threatened to turn 
the Confederate left. To relieve the centre, Gen. Loring was ordered to 
attack with his own division and that of Bowen. Gen. Loring did not 
attack. The enemy remained steadily in his front, in heavy force, occupy- 
ing a series of ridges, wooded, and commanding each other, and forming a 
very strong position. 

Meanwhile Stevenson's sixty-five hundred troops bore the brunt of the 
battle, sustained the heavy and repeated attacks of the enemy, broke 
Hovey's line, and drove it in disorder. But tliere were three other di- 
visions of Grant's army marching from Baymond, and about to come into 
action. The only reinforcements that came to Stevenson's overtasked 
troops, were two brigades of Bowen. Loring was inactive ; he again dis- 
obeyed orders to move to the left, and remained engaged with the move- 
ments of the enemy in his front. Stevenson continued the unequal battle 
until the enemy's division from Baymond had arrived on the field, when 
the Confederate line at last gave way and broke in confusion from the 
field. 

Gen. Loring states that he was making dispositions for an attack upon 
the enemy's right, by which he hoped to '' overwhelm it and retrieve the 
day," when he received orders from Peraberton to retreat and bring up the 
rear. If such an attack was designed, it was too late ; the day was already 
lost. The retreat of the Confederates was by the ford and bridge of 
Baker's Creek, As soon as the enemy realized that they were leaving the 
field, he moved forward in heavy force. The retreat was covered with 
great spirit. Brigadier-Gen. Tilghman, of Boring's command, having 
become separated from it, was left with less than fifteen hundred efi'ective 
men to sustain the attack of six or eight thousand of the enemy, with a 
fine park of artillery. But he was advantageously posted ; he not only 
kept the enemy in check, but repulsed him on several occasions, and thus 
kept open the only line of retreat left to the army. He was killed as he 
was serving with his own hands a twelve-poimd howitzer. His bold stand 
saved a large portion of the army ; but the retreating columns were not 
yet across the stream. A message was sent to Gen. Loring : " For God's 
sake, hold your position until sundown, and save the army." A few 
moments later, a despatch was received from Gen. Bowen, stating that the 



392 THE LOST CAUSE. 

enemy had crossed the bridge and out-flanked him, that he had been com- 
pelled precipitately to fall back, and that Loring must do his best to save 
his division. Gen. Loring, having ascertained that it was impossible to 
attempt the passage of the Big Black at any point, determined to force the 
rear of the enemy between Raymond and Utica, and to make his retreat 
through the east and effect a junction with the forces of Gen. Johnston in 
the neighbourhood of Jackson. He succeeded in doing so with the loss of 
his artillery. 

On the following day, lYth May, Pemberton's shattered and demoral- 
ized forces had taken up a position upon the east bank of the Big Black 
River, The position was a strong one in a bend of the river, sheltered by 
patches of wood, with marshes extending on either side towards the river. 
The works were provided with a sufficient quantity of artillery ; they were 
manned by a considerable force ; and the position might have been held 
against largely superiour numbers. But the events of the previous day 
had demoralized the troops ; they abandoned their position at the first 
assault of a Federal brigade ; they left in the enemy's possession eighteen 
pieces of artillery ; they scattered in wild and tumultuous flight. " The 
retreat," says Gen. Pemberton himself, " became a matter of sauve qui 
jpeutP By nightfall the fugitive disordered troops were pouring into 
the streets of Yicksburg, and the citizens beheld with dismay the 
army that had gone out to fight for their safety, returning to them 
under the shame of defeat, and in the character of a wild and blas- 
phemous mob. 

The fate of Yicksburg may be said to have been virtually decided, 
when Pemberton was driven into it, and the lines of the enemy drawn 
around it. Gen. Johnston so regarded it. "VYlien he learned of the disas- 
ter at Baker's Creek, he despatched to Pemberton : " If Haynes's Bluff be 
untenable, Yicksburg is of no value and cannot be held. If, therefore, 
you are invested in Yicksburg, you must ultimately surrender. Under 
Buch circumstances, instead of losing both troops and place, you must, if 
possible, save the troops. If it is not too late, evacuate Yicksburg and its 
dependencies, and march to the northeast." Before the despatch was 
received Gen. Pemberton had fallen back to Yicksburg. 

Of this unfortunate situation Gen. Johnston writes : " Had the battle 
of Baker's Creek not been fought. Gen. Pemberton's belief that Yicksburg 
was his base, rendered his ruin inevitable. He would still have been be- 
sieged, and therefore captured. The larger force he would have carried 
into the lines, would have added to and hastened the catastrophe. His 
disasters were due, not merely to his entangling himself with the advanc- 
ing columns of a superiour and unobserved enemy, but to his evident 
determination to be besieged in Yicksburg, instead of manoeuvring to pre- 
vent a siege." 



RIBGB OF VICKSBUKG. '^93 



SIEGE AND 8UKKENDEK OF VICKSBUKG 



Gen. Pcmberton liad in Yicksburg eight thousand fresh troops, not 
demoralized by defeat. When he arrived in town from the battle-field at 
Big Black, a general feeling of distrust was expressed in his competency, 
and the place was regarded as lost. Every one expected Grant's army to 
march into Yicksburg that night, while there was no means of defence and 
no spirit in the troops. Gen. Pemberton set to work, reorganizing the 
army for the last desperate struggle. Gen. Baldwin went out to review 
the line of defences, and imagining that the first assault would be made on 
the left wing, he petitioned to be assigned to hold that position with his 
veteran troops, upon whose fidelity and courage he could depend. The 
army was placed in position on the lines, and placed in the ditches, with 
Gen. Baldwin on the left, and Gen. Lee on the right. The centre was 
held by Gens. Pemberton, Smith, and Forney. As these dispositions were 
made, the confidence of the troops was gradually restored ; they saw the 
purpose of defence ; and they were entertained with the prospect that their 
besieged condition would soon be relieved by Johnston's army. 

But such prospect was not a little visionary. The truth of the situa- 
tion was that Pemberton had trapped himself in Yicksburg, to surrender 
to famine what could not be won by assault. Gen. Johnston had come to 
the Mississippi Department with no army of his own, beyond a few troops, 
to take charge of Pemberton's, which he found broken to pieces, and the 
remnants sheltered in Yicksburg. To collect a new army by appeals to 
the Pichmond authorities, the Governor of Mississippi, and other quar- 
ters, became his only resource. With all his eflforts only twenty thousand 
men could be raised, many of them raw troops, without field-guns and 
proper equipment ; while Grant had been reinforced to eighty thousand 
men, besides the co-operation of Porter's fleet. He had also entrenched 
himself on every side with a difficult river between himself and Johnston. 
For the latter to have dashed himself against the enemy in such circum- 
stances, might have been esteemed an act of magnificent daring ; but it 
would not have been war. If Pemberton, instead of crowding super- 
serviceable troops in a fortress to consume its scant supplies, or become 
the victims of disease or war, had thrown sufiScient garrison into Yicks- 
burg, and kept at large twenty thousand men, he could have so reinforced 
Johnston as to have enabled him to act promptly before Grant had 
entrenched himself, and thus relieve Yicksburg from the purpose of his 
efforts, by giving him occupation outside. But none of these things were 
done. Johnston's resources were utterly inadequate to any good purpose ; 
he could not collect a sufficient force to break the investment of Yicks- 



894 THE LOST CAUSE. 

burg ; and the prospect even of making a diversion or opening ccmmiini 
cation with the garrison was uncertain and difficult. 

Vicksburg was invested bj the enemy on the eastern side : Sherman 
holding the right of the lines, McPherson the centre, and McClernand the 
left. A new base of supplies was established, leading from the Yazoo 
directly to the rear. Guns were planted in opposition to the long, fortified 
series of works of the Confederates. 

On the 19th May, the division of Gen. Blair, and a brigade of Sher 
man's division assaulted what was thought to be a weak place in the Con- 
federate line of defence. They were severely repulsed. On the 22d a 
more concerted attack was ordered by Gen. Grant, and the whole line was 
bombarded by cannon. At an early hour the left, under McClernand, 
gained a foot-hold at an angle of the works, but was dislodged ; and the 
enemy withdrew from the attack, after having suffered a loss of some 
twenty-five hundred men disabled. The attempt to take Vicksburg by 
storm seems to have been abandoned after this ; and it was determined to 
reduce the position by siege and parallel works. 

And now commenced a terrible task. Fort was erected against fort, 
and trench dug against trench. The enemy's sappers constructed their 
corridors and passages and pits amid a blazing fire of hostile musketry, and 
the fiercest rays of the summer sun. The Confederates, confined to tho 
narrow limits of the trenches, with their limbs cramped and swollen, nev^er 
had, by day or by night, the slightest relief. They were exposed to burn- 
ing suns, drenching rains, damp fogs, and heavy dews. The citizens, 
women, and children, prepared caves in the hill, where they took refugo 
during the almost incessant bombardment. Thus, through the months of 
May and June continued the weary siege. The spirits of the troops were 
in a measure kept up by news received from Johnston's army, by means of 
messengers who found a way through the swamps and thickets of tho 
Yazoo. 

Although Gen. Johnston was too weak to save Vicksburg, he enter- 
tained some hope of extricating the garrison, "With this view Gen. Taylor, 
commanding in the Trans-Mississippi, was ordered to co-operate with 
Pemberton from the west bank of the Mississippi. But the movement 
miscarried ; Taylor's attack on the Federal camp at Milliken's Bend was 
repulsed ; and all hope of help from the West was ultimately abandoned. 

On the 22d June a despatch was received from Pemberton by Gen. 
Johnston, suggesting that the latter should make to Grant " propositions 
to pass this army out, with all its arms and equipages," and renewing his 
(Pemberton's) hope of his being able, by force of arms, to act with Jolin- 
ston, and expressing the opinion that he could hold out for fifteen days 
longer. Johnston was moved by the determined spirit of the despatch. 
He replied : " Something may yet he done to save Vicksburg. Postpone 



BUERENDEB OF VICKSBIIRG. 395 

DOtk of the modes suggested of merely extricating the garrison. Kego* 
tiations with Grant for the relief of the garrison, should they become neces- 
sary, must be made by you. It would be a confession of weakness on my 
part, which I ought not to make, to • propose them. When it becomes 
necessary to make terms, they may be considered as made under my 
authority." 

On the 29th June, field transportation and other supplies having been 
obtained, Johnston's army marched toward the Big Black, and on the 
evening of July 1st encamped between Brownsville and the river. 

Keconnoissances, which occupied the second and third, convinced Gen. 
Johnston that the attack north of the railroad was impracticable. He 
determined, therefore, to make the examinations necessary for the attempt 
south of the railroad — thinking, from what was already known, that the 
chance for success was much better there, although the consequences of 
defeat might be more disastrous. 

On the night of the 3d July a messenger was sent to Gen. Pemberton 
with information that an attempt to create a diversion would be made to 
enable him to cut his way out, and that Johnston hoped to attack the ene- 
my about the 7th. 

On the Fourth of July Pemberton surrendered Yicksburg. The expla- 
nation has been made in his behalf that he never received Johnston's de- 
spatches, encouraging the hope that both Yicksburg and the garrison might 
be saved ; and Gen. Pemberton has declared that had he received these de- 
spatches : " I would have lived upon an ounce a day, and have continued 
to meet the assaults of all Grant's army, rather than have surrendered the 
city until Gen. Johnston had realized or relinquished that hope." 

As it was, he determined to surrender Yicksburg on the anniversary of 
the Fourth of July for the very singular reason that it would gi'atify the 
enemy's " vanity " to enter the stronghold of the great river on that par- 
ticular day, and that such a concession might procure better terms than at 
any other time. The preliminary note for terms was despatched on the 3d 
July. Correspondence on the subject continued during the day, and waa 
not concluded until nine o'clock the next morning. Gen. Pemberton 
afterwards came out, and had a personal interview with Grant, in front of 
the Federal line, the two sitting for an hour and a half in close com- 
munion. A spectator says : " Grant was silent and smoking, while Pem- 
berton, equally cool and careless in manner, was plucking straws and 
biting them as if in merest chit-chat." 

It was a terrible day's work for such a display of sangfroid. It waa 
the loss of one of the largest armies which the Confederates had in the 
field ; the decisive event of the Mississippi Yalley ; the virtual surrender 
of the great river ; and the severance of the Southern Confederacy. The 
numbers which surrendered at the capitulation of Yicksburg were twenty- 



396 THE LOST CAUSE. 

three thousand men, with three Major-Generals, and nine Brigadiers, np« 
wards of ninety pieces of artillery, and about forty thousand small-arms. 
"Weakness from fatigue, short rations, and heat, had left thousands of the 
troops decrepit. Six thousand of them were in the hospitals, and many of 
them were crawling about in what should be convalescent camps. Four 
thousand citizens and negroes, besides Pemberton's army, included all the 
souls within the walls of Yicksburg. When we consider that these people 
had for a month and a half been in daily terrour of their lives, never being 
able to sleep a night in their homes, but crawling into caves, unable to move 
exce])t in the few peaceful intervals in the heat of the day, we may appre- 
ciate what a life of horrour was theirs. 

The first result of the suiTender of Yicksburg, was the fall of Port 
Hudson, and the consequent supremacy of the Federal arms along the 
entire length of the Mississippi. Gen. Banks had invested this place ; he 
had made two assaults on the 27th May and on the lith June ; and he had 
been repulsed by Gen. Gardner, who held the place with about five thou- 
sand men. When the news was communicated to Gardner that Yicksburg 
had surrendered, knowing that all hope of relief was at an end, he deter- 
mined that it was useless to prolong resistance, and on the 9th July surren- 
dered himself and the garrison as prisoners of war. 

These events on the Mississippi constituted a reverse, which the re- 
sources of the Confederacy, neither in men nor means, could endure with- 
out great strain. Across the river the train of disaster appears to have 
extended. The fall of the strongholds of the Mississippi resulted in the re- 
treat of our army from Little Bock, and the surrender to the enemy of the 
important valley in which it was situated ; while a campaign auspiciously 
begun in Lower Louisiana was abandoned in consequence of the release of 
Banks' forces from the siege of Port Hudson. To these events we must 
now take the reader so as to gather up the several threads of the narrative 
of the war in the West. 



OPERATIONS IN THE TEANS-MISSISSIPPI — BATTLE OF HELENA. 

In the month of May it was deemed advisable by Gen. E. Kirby Smith, 
then commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, that a demonstration 
should be made on the west side of the river in order that Yicksburg 
might be relieved. He accordingly directed Gen. Holmes to put the 
troops in Arkansas in motion to operate against Helena, a place on the 
west side of the river eighty miles south of Memphis and three hundred 
miles north of Yicksburg. It was occupied by a garrison of four thousand 
Fedei'al troops, with a gunboat in the river. 

On the morning of May 31st most of the troops in Arkansas were put 



BATTLE OF HELENA. 397 

in motion for an advance. The weather was very wet, the creeks all full; 
and the ground covered with water. For tlic expedition Gen. Holmes had 
Price's Division of infantry, consisting; of Parsons' Missouri Biigade num- 
bering 1,000, and McKay's Arkansas Brigade of 400 ; Pagan's Brigade of Ar- 
kansas infantry, numbering 1,500 ; and Marmaduke's Division of Arkansas 
and Missouri cavalry, numbering 2,000 ; making a total of 4,900. These 
several commands formed a junction at Jacksonport, and on the morning of 
22d June commenced their march in the direction of Helena. It was a toil- 
some and dangerous march — one of the most extraordinary recorded in the 
history of the war. The infantry were in water to their waists on two-thirds 
of the road. Heavy details of worn-out men were employed in dragging the 
wagons through difficult places. The mules would be unhitched, a long rope 
fastened to the wagon, and a hundred men pull it through. There was no 
pontoon train, and over the swollen streams bridges of floating logs would be 
constructed, which a loaded wagon would sink several feet under water. In 
making this terrible march, twelve days were consumed, and on the evening 
of the 3d July the jaded men had reached within four miles of Helena. 

Precious time had been lost. A council of war was called, in w^hich 
occurred a remarkable scene. Gen. Holmes explained the strength of the 
position to be attacked. Helena was surrounded by a range of rough, 
wooded hills, which shut it into the river, except a narrow bottom next the 
river, both above and below. The place was defended by three prominent 
forts, one protecting the approach by the north, one at the south, and the 
" Grave- Yard " fort, in the rear of the centre of the city. 

Gen. Price was not in favour of an attack. He argued that the enemy 
was doubtless expecting them, and had concentrated as many troops as he 
deemed sufficient to defend the place, and that, if it had been necessary to 
call troops from Yicksburg for this purpose, the object of the expedition had 
already been accomplished, and the only action of the troops should be to 
operate so as to detain such reinforcements at Helena, He thought this 
might be done most effectually by surrounding the place, cutting off the 
enemy's supplies, both from the country and the river, and harassing him 
by picket-fighting. Even if Helena were taken, he thought it would be a 
dearly-bought victory ; it was untenable ; and if any of the garrison 
escaped, and doubtless they had transports in waiting, their expulsion 
would but strengthen the enemy at Vicksburg, thereby defeating the very 
object of the exj^edition. 

Gen. Holmes wanted the eclat of victory. He replied with warmth : 
" Gen. Price, I intend to attack Helena immediately, and capture the 
place, if possible. Tliis is my fight. If I succeed, I want the glory ; and 
if I fail, I am willing to bear the odium.'' Then turning to the other 
officers, he said : " At t-welve o'clock, to-night, we move towards Helena." 
Gen. Marmaduke, witi:. hie command, was ordered to attack the northern 



398 THE LOST CAUSE. 

fort ; Gen, Fagan was to attack the soutliern fort ; and Gen. Price was 
to assault and capture the centre fort — the attack to commence simulta- 
neously at day-light. 

About day-break the first gun fired was by the battalion of sharp- 
shooters belonging to Parsons' brigade, who encountered an outpost of the 
enemy. Price moved in column of division, the 9th Missouri Infantry in 
advance. The hills were high, the ravines deep ; but the men pressed for- 
ward in good order, the enemy shelling them at every step of the march. 
When the last ridge was reached, the command was halted, and the men 
rested and closed up, ready for the assault. Tliey were now within two 
or three hundred yards of the fort. By this time the firing had com- 
menced on the right and left, and it was known that Fagan and Marma- 
duke were at work. The command was given by Gen. Price to charge 
with fixed bayonets. Tlie troops moved in gallant style, at the run, over 
and through fallen timber and roughly constructed abatis, up hills, and into 
gullies. They were never checked once, and were soon in possession of 
the fort. 

Price's division had done the work assigned it. Heavy guns from the 
gunboat in the river now commenced playing upon the captured fort. 
The men sheltered themselves, as well as they could, and awaited further 
orders. Meanwhile Fagan had moved against the southern fort, and when 
within two hundred yards of it, had commenced a fire of small-arms, 
which provoked such a heavy response of artillery, that his men were com- 
pelled to fall back. Twice was the assault repeated, and with the same 
lesult. Marmaduke met with no better success. Gen. Holmes, seeing the 
iailures of Fagan and Marmaduke, ordered two regiments of Parsons' bri- 
gade to attack the southern fort in the rear. The movement was attempt- 
ed ; but under the fire of the gunboat and the cross-fire of the other two 
forts, and that of the whole infantry force of the enemy, it was impossible 
to advance. Fagan and Marmaduke having withdrawn their forces, it 
became necessary to attempt the withdrawal of Price's division. With the 
whole force of the enemy concentrated upon this division, and separated as 
It was from any support, its retreat was one of mortal peril at every step. 
It was accomplished with heavy loss. The battle was lost ; six hundred 
Confederates had been disabled, and about four hundred taken prisoners. 
Gen. Holmes the next morning commenced his march back to Little Rock. 
The white flag had been run up at Vicksburg ; all hope of the connection 
of the Trans-Mississippi with the eastern portions of the Confederacy was 
at an end ; and Gen. Holmes had made the first step of the retreat which, 
at last abandoning Little Rock, was to surrender to the enemy the most 
valuable portion of Arkansas.* 

* An esteemed correspondent writes us these personal incidents of the Battle of Helena: 



CAMPAIGN m LOWER LOUISIANA. 399 



THE CAMPAIGN IN LOWER LOUISIANA. 

Almost cotemporary with tliese disastrous events was a remarkable 
episode of success in the lower country of the Trans-Mississippi, 
which had, at one time, kindled in the South the hope of the re- 
capture of New Orleans, but finally came to naught on account of in- 
Bufficient forces. 

In the latter part of June, Gen. " Dick " Taylor, who commanded in 
Lower Louisiana, organized an expedition upon Brashear City and its forts. 
Col. Majors, who commanded a brigade of cavalry on the Atchafalaya, 
was ordered to open communication by way of the lakes with Gens. Mou- 
ton and Green, who were to co-operate in front of the enemy's position. 
The junction having been made by Majors, after a successful campaign 
through the Lafourche country, a combined attack was made on Brashear 
City on the 22d June, and the forts taken at the point of the bayonet. 
Eighteen hundred prisoners were captured, nearly five million dollars 
worth of stores, and a position occupied that was the key to Louisiana 
and Texas. 

It was thought that the capture of Brashear City might force the enemy 
to raise the siege of Port Hudson, and that Banks would be driven to the 
choice of abandoning his operations against this place or losing New Or- 
leans. But these expectations failed ; the second diversion to relieve 
Vicksburg and Port Hudson was too late ; and Gen. Taylor, learning of 
the fall of these strongholds and the consequent release of Banks' forces, 

" Gen. Holmes is a brave man, and was under the hottest fire. After the centre fort had been 
captured, and the heavy fire from the gunboat and the two other forts had been opened on it. Gen. 
Hohnes was standing on the parapet, eagerly looking for Fagan, who was his favourite, to plant bis 
colours on the fort he was attacking. While thus standing. Gen. Parsons, who was sheltering him- 
self in the fort, bawled out: " Come down, General ! you will be hit. Don't you hear the shot 
whistling around you ? " "I have the advantage of you. Gen. Parsons, I am deaf, and cannot 
hear them." 

" Another incident of the battle should be recorded as a just tribute to the memory of a brave 
man. At the battle of Prairie-Grove, Lt. Richard Spencer, of the 9th Missouri Infantry, was taken 
eick, and was unable to engage in the fight. While at Jacksonport en route for Helena, he waa 
again taken sick. At Prairie-Grove his colonel had accused him of cowardice, and said that his sick- 
ness was a mere excuse to keep out of the fight. When the command left Jacksonport, the surgeon of 
the regiment advised Lieut. Spencer to remain in hospital, which he refused to do. On the march, 
the surgeon noticing that he was quite unwell, repeatedly urged him to ride in an ambulance, which 
he declined. Once on the march it became necessary to detail an oflScer to remain in charge of some 
baggage, and Spencer was detailed for the purpose. He refused to obey the order, and told his col- 
onel that he had been accused of cowardice for not going into the former fight, and that now he waa 
determined to go if he had to drag his body into action ; that he had rather die than live under such 
on imputation. He was finally excused from remaining with the baggage. Scarcely able to walk, he 
marched to Helena, led his company into the fort, and was shot dead through the bead." 



400 THE LOST CAUSE. 

was no longer able to hold the Lafourche country, and was compelled tc 
abandon the territory he had won. The last serious effort on the line of 
the Mississippi was at an end ; a great prize had passed in the hands of 
the enemy beyond redemption ; and it was already said, by extravagant 
newspapers in Washington and New York, that the dawn of a conquered 
peace was breaking upon the country. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

PAVOtTEABLE ASPECTS OF CONFEDERATE AFFAIRS AFTER THE BATTLE OF CHANOELLOESVILLl!.— 
ALTERNATIVE OF CAMPAIGNS IN RICHMOND. — VIRGINIA AND TENNESSEE. — WHAT DECIDED 
THE CAMPAIGN INTO PENNSYLVANIA. — REORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIR- 
GINIA. — ITS GRAND PREPARATI0:NS ON THE PLAINS OF CULPEPPER. — EWELL's MOVEMENT 

UPOX "WINCHESTER. HIS CAPTURES. ORDER OF LEE's MAKCH TO THE POTOMAC. HOOKER 

OUT-GENERALLED AND BLINDED. — LEe's MARCH TO GETTYSBURG, A MASTER-PIECE OF 
STRATEGY. — CONDUCT OF HIS TROOPS IN THE ENEMY's TERRITORY. — GEN. LEE ABSTAINS 
FROM " RETALIATION." — COMMENT OF THE RICHMOND " EXAMINER." — GEN. HOOKER RE- 
LIEVED, AND MEADB PUT IN COMMAND OF THE FEDERAL ARMY. — ALARM IN THE NORTH. — 
MEADE MARCHES TOWARDS GETTYSBURG. — THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. — A CONFEDERATE 
VICTORY THE FIRST DAY. — HOW IT WAS NOT IMPROVED. — A GREAT EEROUR. — THF. CRITICAL 
HEIGHTS OF GETTYSBURG TAKEN BY THE ENEMY. — CEMETERY RIDGE. — " ROUND TOP." — 
THE CONFEDERATE LINE OF BATTLE. — WHY GEN. LEE DETERMINED TO ATTACK. — ACTION 
OF THE SECOND DAY. — LONGSTREEt's DESPERATE ENGAGEMENT. — TEMPORARY POSSESSION 

OF " ROUND TOP." — SUCCESSES ON THE CONFEDERATE LEFT. ACTION OF THE THIRD DAY. 

AN OMINOUS SILENCE. — SUDDEN AND TERRIBLE CANNONADE. — HEROIC CHARGE OF 

PIOKETt's DIVISION. — SUBLIME DEVOTION OF THE VIRGINIANS. — THEY TAKE THE KEY OF 

THE enemy's POSITION. THE SHOUT OF VICTORY. — PETTIGREw's SUPPORT FAILS. — THE 

DAY LOST. — GEN. LEE RALLYING HIS TROOPS. — HIS SUBSEQUENT RETREAT TO THE POTO- 
MAC. — SUCCESS OF THE RETREAT. — HE RETIRES TO THE LINE OF THE RAPIDAN. — GETTYS- 
BURG THE CLIMACTERIC OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. — HISTORY OF THE PEACE MIS- 
SION OF VICE-PRESIDENT STEPHENS A3 CONNECTED THEREWITH. — AN OSTENSIBLE LETTER 
OF PRESIDENT DAVIS. — HOW THE MISSION WAS REPULSED. — THE HONOUBABLB POSITION 
OF THE CONFEDERATE PRESIDENT. 

A SINGLE day before the fall of Yicksburg occurred, far away, what 
may be emphatically entitled the most important hattle of the wa/r. It was 
fought on the soil of Pennsylvania, on whose wheat-fields President Davis 
had declared, on the floor of the United States Senate in Washington, when 
war was first threatened, should be carried the contest for the rights of 
the South. 

During the few weeks following the brilliant victory of Chancellors- 
ville, never did affairs look so propitious for the Confederates. The safety 
of Yicksburg was not then seriously questioned ; Bragg confronted Kose- 
26 



402 THE LOST CAUSE. 

crans with a force strong enough to hold him at bay ; and the Confederates 
had the choice of two campaigns : either to reinforce Bragg from Lee's 
army, over a distance that might be accomplished in ten days, with two 
lines of railroad as far as Chattanooga, or to change the defensive attitude 
in Virginia, and make a second experiment of the invasion of the Korth. 
Tlie alternative of these campaigns was suggested in Kichmond. The 
latter was decided upon. It was thought advisable to clear Virginia of 
the Federal forces, and put the war back upon the frontier ; to relieve the 
Confederate commissariat ; to counterbalance the continual retreat of the 
armies of Tennessee and Mississippi by an advance into Northern territory, 
ofi'er a counterpoise to the movements of the enemy in the West, and pos- 
sibly relieve the pressure there on the Confederate armies. These reasons 
determined an offensive campaign of Lee's army. 

Gen. Longstreet was recalled from North Carolina ; and the Army of 
Northern Virginia, preparatory to the campaign, was re-organized, and 
divided into three equal and distinct corps. To Gen. Longstreet was 
assigned the command of the first corps, consisting of the divisions of 
McLaw, Hood, and Pickett ; to Gen. Ewell, who had succeeded to the com- 
mand of Jackson's old corps, were assigned the divisions of Early, Rodes, 
and Johnson ; and to Gen. A. P. Hill was the third corps given, consisting 
of the divisions of Anderson, Pender, and Heth. Each of these three corps 
numbered about 25,000 men, making the total strength of the army 75,000, 
irrespective of the cavalry. 

On the plains near Culpepper were the preparations made for the 
grand campaign. It was the beautiful month of May. All was bustle 
and activity ; the freshness of the air and the glow of expectation animated 
the busy scene. Trains were hurried up filled with munitions of war ; new 
and splendid batteries of artillery were added to the army ; the troops, as 
far as possible, were newly equipped, and ordnance trains were filled to 
their utmost capacity. The cavalry, 15,000 strong, were reviewed at 
Brandy Station ; crowds of ladies attended the display ; and Gen. Stuart, 
the gallant commander, whose only weakness was military foppery and an 
inordinate desire of female admiration, rode along the lines on a horse 
almost covered with bouquets. Nearly a week was consumed in review- 
ing cavalry, infantry, and artillery. By the first of June all was in readi- 
ness, and the advance was ordered. 

Gen. Ewell's corps, in the lead, pushed rapidly forward, and marched 
across the Blue Eidge Mountains, byway of Front Royal, into the Shenan- 
doah Valley upon Winchester. Here he surprised Gen. Milroy, defeated 
him ; and it was with difficulty that the Federal general, with a few of his 
officers, escaped through the Confederate lines under cover of the night, 
and succeeded in crossing the Potomac at Harper's Ferry. Three thou- 
sand prisoners, thirty pieces of artillery, over one hundred wagons, and a 



GEN. lee's movement ACK0S8 THE POTOMAC. 403 

great quantity of stores were captured in and near Winchester, and seven 
hundred men surrendered to Gen. Kodes at Martinsburg. With this aus- 
picious opening of the campaign, Ewell promptly moved up to the Poto- 
mac, where he occupied all the fords. 

Longstreet's corps had been directed to march on Culpepper, his right 
flank guarded by detachments of Stuart's cavalry, which watched the lords 
of the Kappahannock, while A. P. Hill's corps remained near Fredericks- 
burg, to deceive the enemy by an appearance of strength. These move- 
ments were not entirely imobscrved by Gen. Hooker. He had reason to 
suppose that some of the Confederate forces had been withdrawn from his 
front ; and accordingly, on the 5th of June, a strong reconnoissance ^vas 
sent across the river on Lee's right. But the skilful Confederate com- 
mander, who was now performing a great master-piece of strategy, suc- 
ceeded in masking his real strength, and leading Hooker to suppose that 
his entu*e army was still in the neighbourhood of Fredericksburg. On the 
7th June another reconnoissance was directed, and an expedition of cavalry, 
which had crossed the Rappahannock at Beverly's and Kelly's Fords, at- 
tacked Gen. Stuart at Brandy Station. This force of the enemy was routed 
by Stuart, and forced to recross the river, after having lost four hundred 
prisoners and three pieces of artillery. Although this later reconnoissance 
developed to a certain extent the direction of Gen. Lee's march. Hooker 
was too dull to comprehend its importance, and, never dreaming of any 
movement into the ^Northern territory beyond perhaps a raid for commis- 
sary purposes, contented himself with making a disposition of liis forces to 
cover Washington, and taking up a strong position between Manassas and 
Centreville, so as to interpose his army between the Confederate forces and 
what he supposed to be the object of their campaign. 

Lee marched rapidly forward in pursuance of his plans. He had played 
with the enemy so as to mislead him entirely. Hooker followed Lee to 
the passes of the Blue Ridge, but was so uncertain whether he meant to 
give battle there, or move up the Valley, that time was lost, and instead 
of bringing the point to an issue at once in Yirginia, the Federal com- 
mander had to hastily cross the Potomac, and take position in Maryland. 
Lee crossed the Potomac in the vicinity of Shepherdstown, on the 24th of 
June. The corps of Ewell had preceded him two days before, and on the 
23d had occupied Chambersburg. On the 27th of June the whole of Lee's 
army was at Chambersburg. An advance on Harrisburg had been con- 
templated ; but the design was abandoned on the 29t]i, in consequence of 
the information that the Federal army was moving northwards, and so 
menacing the communication of the Confederate army with the Potomac. 
To check the enemy's advance, therefore, Gens. Longstreet, Hill, and 
Ewell were ordered to proceed to Gettysburg. Thus within twenty days 
the great Confederate commander had brought his entire army from Fred- 



404 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ericksburgj by the way of tlie Shenandoah Yalley to Gettysburg in I*enn> 
sylvania, without obstruction, and executed a wonderful feat of strategy. 
It is true that other commanders in the war had made longer marches and 
accomplished more magnificent distances. But to estimate properly the 
generalship of Lee, it must be remembered that when he set out on this 
expedition, he was confronted by one of the largest and best appointed 
armies the enemy ever had in the field ; that Winchester, Martinsburg, 
Harper's Ferry, and Berryville were garrisoned by hostile forces ; that the 
Federal cavalry were in splendid condition ; and yet in the face of all these 
facts, he had marched along the Rappahannock, over the passes of the 
Blue Ridge, up the Shenandoah Yalley, and across the fords of the Poto- 
mac into Pennsylvania, without his progress being arrested. 

When the Confederate army obtained a footing on the soil of Pennsyi 
vania, there were many people who supposed that as here there was no 
friendly disposition of the invaded, no reputation of political sympathy, as 
in Maryland, to interpose between them and the penalties of war, the 
troops would be prompt to exact a severe retribution for the cruelties of 
the enemy displayed in the desolated homes and fields of the South. But 
no such thing occurred ; no such expectation was answered. On the con- 
trary, no sooner had Gen. Lee crossed the line than he announced that 
private property would be respected, and proceeded, by general orders, to 
restrain all excesses of his troops, and, in fact, to give to the invaded peo- 
ple of Pennsylvania a protection which even those of the South had not 
always had against the impressments and other exactions of the war. No 
house was entered without authority ; no granary was pillaged ; no prop- 
erty was taken without payment on the spot ; and vast fields of grains 
were actually picketed by Confederate guards, mounted on almost starved 
horses. 

So far as these orders of Gen. Lee maintained the discipline and morals 
of his troops, prevented them from degenerating into ruffians, and declined 
retaliation of this sort, they were generally sustained by the public opinion 
of his countrymen, for exasperated as they were by what they had ex- 
perienced of the enemy's barbarities in their own homes, the Southern 
people were so proud of their reputation for chivalry, and plumed them- 
selves so much on this account, that they were willing to sacrifice for it al- 
most any other passion of the war. But there was an obvious distinction 
in this matter, and the Richmond Examiner indicated it in a striking and 
powerful censure of Gen. Lee's course. It was said that only a few persons 
in the South recommended retaliation in kind / that it was not advised 
that houses should be burned, or robbed, jewelry stolen, and women raped 
in Pennsylvania, in exact imitation of the acts of Northern troops in Yir- 
giuia and Mississippi ; but that such guard on the discipline and honour 
of Confederate soldiers was not inconsistent with a devastation of the 



GEN. LEPJS MODEKATION. 405 

enemy's country, done with the deliberation of general ordei'S, and by the 
army acting in line of battle ; and that such retribution, while it could 
have brought no historical discredit on the Confederate arras, was due the 
suffering people of the South, was necessary to teach the enemy a lesson, 
and indicated a kind of operation which, removed from the enemy's own 
barbarity, would equally avoid that weak warfare which irritated instead 
of alarming an invaded people, and thus strengthened their forces and ob- 
tained recruits for them on their own soil. Gen. Lee appears never to 
have comprehended this argument. We shall see hereafter in what coin 
his civilities in Pennsylvania were paid back, and how, notwithstanding 
the constant exertions of the Confederates, for what President Davis termed 
the reputation of " Christian warriours," the ingenious falsehoods of an 
enemy, himself constantly in the commission of the worst atrocities, en- 
titled them the worst of savages, and turned upon them the phrase of 
" rebel harharitiesP But surely one reflection here cannot escape the 
world. It is the extreme improbability of such " barbarity " on the 
part of a people who, in the third year of the war, exhibited this magna- 
nimity in Pennsylvania, and even in the character of an invading army, 
declined to take advantage of some of the most ordinary penalties 
of war. 

On the 2Stli of June, Gen. Hooker, at his own request, was relieved 
from the command of the Federal army, and Gen. Meade, whose antece- 
dents were those of an efficient corps and division commander, was ap- 
pointed to succeed him. A great alarm pervaded the North. The Gov- 
ernors of Ohio, Pennsylvania, ISTew York, Maryland, and "Western Vir- 
ginia called out their militia forces. But these feverish displays were of 
little consequence. It was easily seen by the intelligent that the security 
of the North rested upon Meade's army, and on the strongly fortified lines 
of Washington, and that if this array was once broken, hastily levied 
militia could afford no protection against Lee's army, and that thus the 
war was about to culminate in a grand contest of regular arms. It was a 
sharp, fearful issue. Gen. Meade found himself in command of a splendid 
army of about one hundred and fifty thousand men. He comprehended 
the necessity of rapid and decisive action. Hapidly organizing his forces, 
he marched out to meet the Confederates. Making a disposition of his 
forces so as to cover both Washington and Baltimore at the same time, he 
moved forward cautiously until his advance reached Gettysburg. About 
one mile from the town, a line of entrenchments was thrown up on a range 
of hills, and a heavy force moved forward through and beyond the town to 
vratch the movements of his adversary. ^ 



406 THE LOST CAUSE. 



THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 



The great battle opened on tlie 1st July. The enemy's advance, con 
sisting of the Eleventh Corps, was met by Hetli's division, and shortly 
thereafter Ewell hnrled the main body of his corps on the Federal column. 
"When within one mile of the town, the Confederates made a desperate 
charge. The Federal line was broken ; the enemy was driven in terrible 
confusion ; the streets of the small town soon became thronged with fugi- 
tives ; and Ewell, sweeping all before him, charged through the town, 
strewing every step of his progress with the enemy's dead, and taking five 
thousand prisoners. The crowded masses of fugitives poured through the 
town in rout and confusion, ascending the slopes of a hill towards a ceme- 
tery that covered its apex. 

It was not later than live o'clock in the evening, but the success was 
not followed up. As Ewell and Hill prepared for a fresh attack, they 
were halted by Gen. Lee, who deemed it advisable to abstain from press- 
ing his advantage until the arrival of the remainder of his army. The un- 
fortunate inaction of a single evening and night enabled Meade not only, 
on his part, to bring up all his forces, but to post them on an almost im- 
pregnable line, which the Confederates liad permitted a routed detach- 
ment of a few thousand men to occupy and hold. 

The failure of Gen. Lee to follow up the victory of the 1st, enabled the 
enemy to take at leisure, and in full force, one of the strongest positions in 
, any action of the Avar, and to turn the tables of the battle-field completely 
upon the Confederates. On the night of the 1st July, Gen. Meade, in 
person, reached the scene of action, and concentrated his entire army on 
those critical heights of Gettysburg, that had bounded the action of the 
first day, designated by the proper name of Cemetery Ridge. This ridge, 
which was just opposite the town, extended in a westerly and southerly 
direction, gradually diminishing in elevation till it came to a very promi- 
nent ridge, called " Round Top," running east and west. The Confederates 
occupied an exteriour ridge, less elevated, distant from the lines occupied 
by the Federals from a mile to a mile and a half. On this sunken parallel 
was arranged the Confederate line of battle — Ewcll's corps on the left, be- 
ginning at the town with Early's division, then Rodes' division ; on the 
right of R/)des' division was the left of Hill's corps, commencing with 
Heth's, then Pender's and Anderson's divisions. On the right of Ander- 
son's division was Longstreet's left, McLaw's division being next to Ander- 
son's, and Hood on the extreme right of our line, which was opposite the 
eminence upon which the enemy's left rested. 

There was long a persistent popular opinion in the South that Gen. Lee. 



BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 407 

having failed to improve the advantage of the first day, did wrong there- 
after to fight at Gettysburg. But this cliarge must be discussed with care. 
Gen. Lee, himself, has explained how a battle was forced upon him. He 
says : " It had not been intended to fight a general battle at such distance 
from our base, unless attacked by the enemy ; but finding ourselves unex- 
pectedly confronted by the Federal army, it became a matter of difiiculty 
to withdraw through the mountains with our large trains. At the same 
time the country was unfavourable for collecting supplies, while in the pres- 
ence of the enemy's main body, as he was enabled to restrain our foraging 
parties by occupying the passes of the mountains with regular and local 
troops. A battle thus became, in a measm-e, unavoidable. Encouraged 
by the successful issue of the first day, and in view of the valuable results 
which would ensue from the defeat of the army of Gen. Meade, it was 
thought advisable to renew the attack." 

It is true that the position of the enemy was one of extraordinary 
strength. But the Army of ISTorthern Yirginia was in an extraordinary 
state of j^roficiency ; it was flushed with victory ; it had accomplished so 
many wonders in the past that it was supposed to be equal to anything 
short of a mu-acle ; and when, on the morning of the 2d, Gen. Lee recon- 
noitred the field, and scanned the heights which looked upon him through 
brows of brass and iron, he was noticed to rise in his stirrups, and mutter 
an expression of confidence. He decided to attack. 

The action of the 2d July did not commence until about two o'clock in 
the afternoon. Under cover of a heavy fire from the Confederate batteries, 
Longstreet advanced against the Federal left, and Ewell, from Gettysburg 
and Kocky Creek, moved forward Johnson's, Rodes', and Early's divisions 
against the right, his guns keeping up a continuous fire on the slopes of 
Cemetery Hill. "Whilst the two corps on the flanks advanced to the attack, 
Anderson's division received orders to be prepared to support Longstreet, 
and Pender and Heth to act as a reserve, to be employed as circumstances 
might require. 

Longstreet, having placed himself at the head of Hood's and McLaw's 
divisions, attacked with great fury. The first part of the enemy's line he 
stiTick was Sickles' corps, which he hurled back with terrible loss on the 
heights in its rear. The Confederates delivered their fire at short musket 
range, then charged up the steep ascent with the peculiar yell of the 
Southern soldier. Meade, seeing that the real attack was against his left, 
hurried reinforcements rapidly from his centre. For two hours the battle 
raged with sublime fury, and on the semi-circle of Kound Top trembled 
the fiery diadem of victory and all the issues of the day. The fire was 
fearful and incessant ; three hundred pieces of artillery belched forth death 
and destruction on every side ; the tumultuous chorus made the earth 
tremble ; and a dense pall of smoke fitly constituted a sulphurous canopy 



40S THE LOST CAUSE. 

for scenes of infernal horrour. Longstreet, with hat in hand, seemed to 
court the death which avoided him. At one moment it was thought the 
day was won. Three brigades of Anderson's division moved up, had made 
a critical attack, and Wilcox and Wright almost gained the ridge ; but 
reinforcements reached the Federals ; and, unsupported by the remainder 
of Anderson's division, Longstreet's men failed to gain the summit of the 
hill, or to drive back the enemy from the heights of the Round Top. 

On the Confederate left, Ewell's success had been better. He had 
moved forward to the assault of Cemetery Hill ; Johnson's division forced 
its way across the broken ground near Rocky Creek, sustaining consider- 
able loss from the fire poured down upon it from the higher ground ; 
Early's division advanced to storm the ridge above Gettysburg, and Eodes 
on the right moved forward in support. But the attack was not simul- 
taneous. Hayes' and Hoke's brigades of Early's division, succeeded in 
capturing the first line of breastworks, but were driven back by the weight 
of numbers. Johnson, however, gained important ground, and when night 
fell, still retained hold of the position he had seized on the right bank of 
Rocky Creek. 

The summary of the second day's action was that the Confederates had 
obtained some advantage ; that the Round Top had, at least, been tempo- 
rarily in their possession, showing that it was not .impregnable ; that on 
the left, important positions had been taken ; and so the result was such as 
to lead Gen. Lee to believe that he would ultimately be able to dislodge 
the enemy, and to decide the Confederate commander upon a last, su- 
preme efi'ort for decisive victory. 

The morning of the 3d July wore away with but little incident of con- 
flict. On the extreme left, where Johnson occupied the right bank of 
Rocky Creek, there was some desultory action ; but Gen. Lee did not at- 
tempt to assist this part of the line, hoping to retrieve whatever might 
occur there by a vigorous movement against the centre of the enemy's po- 
sition. Early in the morning he ascended the College cupola in Gettys- 
burg; to reconnoitre. Pickett's division of three brio-ades, numbering less 
than five thousand men, which had been left to guard the rear, reached the 
field of Gettysburg on the morning of the 3d. This body of Virginia 
troops was now to play a part the most important in the contest, and on 
this summer day to make a mark in history, to survive as long as the lan- 
guage of glorious deeds is read in this world. 

About noon there was a deep calm in the warm air. Gen. Lee deter- 
mined to mass his artillery in front of Hill's corps, and under cover of this 
tremendous fire to direct the assault on the enemy's centre. To this end 
more than one hundred pieces of artillery were placed in position. On the 
opposite side of the valley might be perceived the gradual concentration 
of the enemy in the woods, the preparations for the mighty contest that 



BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 409 

was at last to break the ominous silence with a sound of conflict sucli as 
was scarcely ever before heard on earth. It was a death-like silence. At 
12. 30, p. M., the shrill sound of a Whitworth gun pierced the air. In- 
stantly more than two hundred cannon belched forth their thunder at one 
time. It was absolutely appalling. An officer writes : " The air was hid- 
eous with most discordant noise. The very earth shook beneath our feet, 
and the hills and rocks seemed to reel like a drunken man. For one hour 
and a half this most terrific fire was continued, during which time the 
shrieking of shell, the crash of falling timber, the fragments of rocks flying 
through the air, shattered from the clifiTs by solid shot, the heavy mutter- 
ings from the valley between the opposing armies, the splash of bursting 
shrapnell, and the fierce neighing of wounded artillery horses, made a pic- 
ture terribly grand and subHme." 

Into this scene of death moved out the Confederate column of assault. 
Pickett's division proceeded to descend the slope of hills and to move 
across the open ground. The front M'as thickly covered with skirmishers ; 
then followed Kemper's and Garnett's brigades, forming the first line, with 
Armistead in support. On the flanks were — Heth's division, commanded 
by Pettigrew, of Hill's corps, and Wilcox's brigade of McLaw's corps, 
the former on the left, the latter on the right of the "Virginians. Pickett 
led the attack. The five thousand Yirginians descended the hill with the 
precision and regularity of a parade. As they reached the Emmittsburg 
road, the Confederate guns, which had fired over their heads to cover the 
movement, ceased, and there stood exposed these devoted troops to the un- 
interrupted fire of the enemy's batteries, while the fringe of musketry fire 
along a stone wall marked the further boundary of death to which they 
marched. No halt, no waver. Through half a mile of shot and shell 
pressed on the devoted column. It was no sudden impetus of excitement 
that carried them through this terrible ordeal ; it was no thin storm of fire 
which a dash might penetrate and divide. In every inch of air was the 
wing of death. Against the breadth of each man's body reared the red 
crest of Destruction. 

Steadily the Virginians press on. The name of Virginia was that day 
baptized in fire, and illuminated forever in the temple of History. There 
had been no such example of devotion in the war. Presently wild cries 
ring out ; the smoke-masked troops are in the enemy's works ; there is a 
Land-to-hand contest, and again and again the Confederate flag is lifted 
through the smoke over the shrinking columns of the enemy. Garnett is 
dead. Armistead is mortally wounded. Kemper is shot down. Every 
brigadier of the division is killed or wounded. But Pickett is unscathed 
in the storm ; his flashing sword has, taken the key of the enemy's position, 
and points the path of the conflict through his broken columns ; the glad 
shout of victory is already heard ; and on the distant hill of observation, 



410 THE LOST CAUSE. 

where a little group of breathless spectators had watched the scene, Long* 
street turns to Gen. Lee to congratulate him that the day is won. 

Yain ! vain ! Overlooking the field, Gen. Lee saw that the troops of 
Pettigrew's division had wavered. Another moment, and they had fallen 
back in confusion, exposing Pickett's division to attack both from front 
and flank. The courage of Virginians could do no more. Overwhelmed, 
almost destitute of officers, and nearly surrounded, the magnificent troops 
of Pickett gave way. Slowly and steadily they yielded ground, and, un- 
der the heavy fire which the artillery poured into their broken ranks, they 
retraced their steps across the fatal valley. 

Gen. Lee was never known to betray on any battle-field a sign, either 
of exultation or disappointment. As he witnessed the last grand effort of 
his men, and saw it fail, he was seen for a moment to place his finger 
thoughtfully between his lips. Presently he rode quietly in front of the 
woods, rallying and encouraging the broken troops, uttering words of cheer 
and encouragement. To a foreign military officer of rank, who had come 
to witness the battle, he said very simply : " This has been a sad day for 
us, Colonel — a sad day ; but we can't expect always to gain victories." 
There was no dramatic circumstance about him ; no harangue ; but nothing 
could be more afi'ecting, nothing more sublime than to witness that when 
this plain gentleman rode through the throng of broken troops, saying such 
simple words as, " 'Never mind," " We'll talk of this afterwards," " Now we 
want all good men to rally," every fugitive paused, and badly wounded 
men took off their hats to cheer him ! The Army of iN'orthern Yirginia 
never knew such a thing as panic. It never needed a harangue to stir its 
blood on a battle-field. It never had a dramatic accessory to its courage. 
Lee's presence alone was inspiration, order, recovery. An English colonel, 
who rode by the side of the great Confederate commander, remarks : 
" Gen. Lee and his officers were evidently fully impressed with a sense of 
the situation ; yet there was much less noise, fuss, or confusion of orders, 
than at any ordinary field-day ; the men, as they were rallied in the wood, 
were brought up in detachments, and lay down quiet and coolly in the 
positions assigned to them." 

The enemy did not move from his works, and the new crisis for which 
Gen. Lee had so quietly prepared, did not come. ISTight fell over the third 
scene of bloodshed. The Confederate loss in this frightful series of engage- 
ments exceeded ten thousand men. Some of the details of this loss exliibit 
instances of desperate confiict which shock the heart. In Pickett's divi- 
sion, out of twenty-four regimental officers only two escaped unhurt. The 
Ninth Yirginia went in two hundred and fifty strong, and came out with 
only thirty-eight men. In another part of the field the Eighth Georgia 
rivalled this ghastly record of glory. It went into battle with thirty-twc 
officers, out of which twenty-four were killed or wounded. The Federal 



KETKEAT OF THE CONFEDERATES. 411 

loss in the engagement i^roj^er of Gettysburg is not known. Gen. Meade 
acknowledged to the total loss during the campaign of 23,186 killed, 
wounded, and missing. Nearly half of these are to be found in the total 
of j)risoners, including the captures at Winchester. 

The morning of the 4th July dawned upon the two armies still confront- 
ing each other. They occupied precisely the same ground that each occu- 
pied on tiie first day's fight. No disposition was shown by either to attack 
the other. About twelve o'clock Lee made preparations to withdraw such 
of the wounded as could be transported in ambulances and wagons. 
These were placed in line, and, under a strong escort, sent back towards 
the Potomac. This consumed the afternoon and night of the 4th. On the 
morning of the 5tli July the Confederate line of battle was drawn in, leav- 
ing a heavy skirmish line to confront the Federals. By midnight of the 
5th, Lee's rear guard was well out from Gettysburg, and retiring in perfect 
order. There was no excitement, no panic. The entire wagon and supply 
ti-ains, every piece of artillery, large herds of cattle and horses, and about 
seven thousand prisoners, were all brought off safely. 

On reaching Hagerstown, Lee found that the recent rain had so swollen 
the Potomac that the army could not recross in safety. Line of battle was 
again formed, with the left resting upon Hagerstown, and the right upon 
the Potomac. Hastily constructed earthworks were thrown up, and every 
preparation was made to receive the Federals, who, it was reported, were 
rapidly advancing. Meade followed up the pursuit, but showed no dispo- 
sition to attack. He was too badly crippled to offer battle. No disposi- 
tion was evinced on either side to bring on an engagement. Lee continued 
in this position until the pontoons were constructed for the passage of his 
army over the river. He crossed over in face of the enemy, who had 
arrived on the 12th, and taken up position, " with no loss of material, ex- 
cept a few disabled wagons and two pieces of artillery." * 

* The following official communication from Gen. Lee makes its own commentaiy on the unrelia- 
bility of despatches of Federal generals : 

" Headquarters Army Northern Virginia, 21st July, 1863. 
" Gen. S. Cooper, Adjutant and Lispector-General C. 8. A. Richmond, Va. : 

" General — I have seen in Northern papers what purported to be an official despatch from Gen. 
Meade, stating that he had captured a brigade of infantry, two pieces of artillery, two caissons, and 
a large number of small arms, as this army retired to the south bank of the Potomac, on the 13th 
»nd 14th inst. 

" This despatch has been copied into the Richmond papers, and as its official character may 
cause it to be beheved, I desire to state that it is incorrect. The enemy did not capture any organ- 
ized body of men on that occasion, but only stragglers and such as were left asleep on the road, ex- 
hausted by the fatigue and exposure of one of the most inclement nights I have ever known at this sea- 
son of the year. It rained without cessation, rendering the road by which our troops marched to 
the bridge at Falling Waters very difficult to pass, and causmg so much delay that the last of the 
troops did not cross the river at the bridge until 1 p. m., on the 14th. While the column was thus 
detained on the road, a number of men, worn down with fatigue, lay down in bams and by the road- 



il2 THE LOST CAUSE. 

The pursuit of Lee was resumed by a flank movement ot the Federal 
army, crossing the Potomac at Berlin, and moving down the Loudon Val- 
ley. The cavalry were pushed into several passes of the Blue Ridge 
Mountains, but despite all efforts of the Federal forces, Gen. Lee succeeded 
in once more establishing his men on the Rapidan, while the enemy took 
position on the Rappahannock, and thus terminated the campaign 
Meade, by the final battle of Gettysburg, had saved the North ; but he liad 
yet left unfulfilled the task which his countrymen had allotted to him, of 
cutting off and destroying the Army of Northern Virginia. 

Gettysburg may be taken as the grand climacteric of the Southern 
Confederacy. It was the customary phrase of John M. Daniel, editor of 
the Richmond Examiner, that on the 3d July, on the heights of Gettys- 
burg, the Confederates w^ere '•'■ witldn a stoned s throw of peace P The ex- 
pression is not extravagant, when we reflect what w^ould have been the 
moral effect of defeating Meade's army, and uncovering New York, Phila- 
delphia, and Washington ; when, too, the fate of Vicksburg was not de- 
cided, and the vitals of the Confederacy were untouched. 

It was in anticipation and in assurance of a victory so decisive that the 
Confederates had prepared their first distinct proposition of j^eace. The 
proper history of " peace negotiations " commences a few days before Get- 
tysburg. When Lee crossed the Pennsylvania line, a mission was pre- 
pared in Richmond and entrusted to Vice-President Stephens, who was 
ordered to proceed to Washington with the following letter, intended to 
mask his real intentions. This letter, apart from its use as a decoy to the 
real diplomatic matter in hand, has a certain independent interest : 

" FacHMOND, 2(1 July, 18G3. 

" Hon. Alex. H. StepTiens.^ Riclimond, Va.: 

" Sir : Having accepted your patriotic offer to proceed as a military commissioner, 
imder flag of truce, to "Washington, you will herewith receive your letter of authority to 
the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. 

" This letter is signed by me as Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate land and 
naval forces. 

" You will perceive, from the terms of the letter, tliat it is so worded as to avoid any 
political difliculties in its reception. Intended exclusively as one of those communica- 
tions between belligerents which public law recognizes as necessary and proper between 

side, and though officers were sent back to arouse them, as the troops moved on, the darkness and 
rain prevented them from finding all, and many were in this way left behind. Two guns were 
left in the road. The horses that drew them became exhausted, and the officers went forward to 
piocure others. When they returned, the rear of the column had passed the guns so far that it was 
deemed unsafe to send back for them, and they were thus lost. No arms, cannon, or prisoners were 
taken by the enemy in battle, but only such as were left behind under the circumstances I have de- 
scribed. The number of stragglers thus lost I am unable to state with accuracy, but it is greatly 
exaggerated in the despatch referred to. 

" R. E. LEE, General." 



MISSION OF VICE-PKESIDENT STEPHENS. 413 

hostile forces, care has been taken to give no pretext for refusing to receive it on the 
ground that it would involve a tacit recognition of the independence of the Confederacy. 

" Your mission is simply one of humanity, and has no political aspect. 

" If objection is made to receiving your letter on the ground that it is not addressed 
to Abraham Lincoln as President instead of Commander-in-Chief, &c., then you vs^ill pre- 
sent the duplicate letter, which is addressed to him as President, and signed by me as 
President. To this letter objection may bo made on the ground that I am not recog^iized 
to be President of the Confederacy. In this event, you will decline any further attempt 
to confer on the subject of your mission, as such conference is admissible only on a foot- 
ing of perfect equality. 

" My recent interviews with you have put you so fully in possession of my views that 
it is scarcely necessary to give you any detailed instructions, even were I at this moment 
well enough to attempt it. 

" My whole purpose is, in one word, to place this war on the footing of such as are 
waged by civilized people in modern times, and to divest it of the savage character which 
has been impressed on it by our enemies, in spite of all our eiforts and protests. War is 
full enough of unavoidable horrours, under all its aspects, to justify, and even to demand, 
of any Christian ruler who may be unhappily engaged in carrying it on, to seek to restrict 
its calamities, and to divest it of all unnecessary severities. You will endeavour to 
establish the cartel for the exchange of prisoners on such a basis as to avoid the constant 
difficulties and complaints which arise, and to prevent for the future what we deem the 
unfair conduct of our enemies, in evading the delivery of prisoners who ftill into their 
hands, in retarding it by sending them on circuitous routes, and by detaining them some- 
times for months in camps and prisons, and in persisting in taking captive non-com- 
batants. 

" Your attention is also called to the unheard-of conduct of Federal officers in driving 
from their homes entire communities of women and children, as well as of men, whom 
they find in districts occupied by their troops, for no other reason than because these un- 
fortunates are faithful to the allegiance due to their States, and refuse to take an oath of 
fidelity to their enemies. 

" The putting to death of unarmed prisoners has been a ground of just complaint in 
more than one instance, and the recent execution of officers of our army in Kentucky, for 
the sole cause that they were engaged in recruiting service in a State which is claimed 
as still one of the United States, but is also claimed by us as one of the Confederate 
States, must be repressed by retaliation if not unconditionally abandoned, because it 
would justify the like execution in every other State of the Confederacy, and the practice 
is barbarous, uselessly cruel, and can only lead to the slaughter of prisoners on both sides, 
a result too horrible to contemplate without making every effort to avoid it. 

" On these and all kindred subjects you will consider your authority full and ample 
to make such arrangements as will temper the present cruel character of the contest, and 
full confidence is placed in your judgment, patriotism, and discretion that, while carrying 
out the objects of your mission, you will take care that the equal rights of the Confed- 
eracy be always preserved. 

" Very respectfully, 

"JEFFERSON DAYIS." 

Mr. Stephens proceeded only as far as Fortress Monroe, where he was 
intercepted by a despatch peremptorily forbidding his access to the Federal 
capital. Whether the authorities there were aware or not of the real na- 
ture of his mission it is since ascertained that, apart from the written text 



414: THE LOST CAUSE. 

wliicli it bore, it was to sound the Washington Government on the ques- 
tion of x^eace. There could be no other proper conclusion, judging from 
the importance of the emissary, and the absurd futility of his going to 
Washington merely to protest against the enemy's cruelties in conducting 
the war. 

The whole explanation of the affair is that Mr. Stephens was fully em- 
powered in certain contingencies, to propose peace ; that President Davis 
had sent him on this extraordinary visit to Washington, anticipating a 
great victory of Lee's army in Pennsylvania ; that the real design of the 
mission was disconcerted by the fatal day of Gettysburg, which occurred 
when Mr. Stephens was near Fortress Monroe ; and that it was in the in- 
solent moments of this Federal success that he was so sharply rebuffed by 
the Washington authorities. Considering the conjuncture of the occasion 
and the circumstances in which the President of the Southern Confederacy 
sought to signalize what he supposed would be a great victory of his arms, 
by a distinct and formal proposition of peace at Washington, it may be 
said that, notwithstanding the disappointment of the event, and the jeer 
of the enemy, Mr. Davis occupied a proud position in this matter, and one 
that merited the applause of the Christian world. 



CHAPTEE XXY. 

SKITYSBTTRG AND VICKSBTTEG- TWIN DISASTERS FOR THE CONFEDERATES, — THEIR EFFECT ON 
THE OOXFEDEEATE CURRENCY. THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN CONFED- 
ERACY. THE MODERN SYSTEM OF PUBLIC CREDITS AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO WAR. REVIEW 

OF FINANCIAL EXPERIMENTS IN THE MODERN WARS OF EUROPE. — THE THREE CONSPICU- 
OUS EXAMPLES OP GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE AND RUSSIA. — THE GREAT FINANCIAL ERROUB 

IN THE AMERICAN WAR. HOW A BANK OF EXCHEQUER WOULD HAVE OPERATED IN 

THE WAR. — THE RULE OF REFLUX IN CURRENCY. — BRIEF STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL 
CONDITION OF NORTH AND SOUTH AT CLOSE OF THE WAR. — SUSPENSION OF THE SOUTHERN 
BANKS IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. — AMOUNT OF SPECIE IN THE SOUTH AT THE 
COMMENCEMENT OF THE WAR. — PRINCIPAL MEASURES OF CONFEDERATE FINANCE. — HOW 
THE SOUTHERN BANKS BECAME INVOLVED. — PRACTICAL RESULTS OF THEIR LOAN TO THE 

GOVERNMENT. — " MAKING MONEY BY MACHINERY." — SALES OF CONFEDERATE BONDS. 

SPECIAL OCCASIONS FOE THIS INVESTMEI«r. — UNEQUAL TO RELIEVE THE CUERENCY. — 
RATES OF DEPRECIATION OF THE CONFEDERATE MONEY. — RICHMOND, THE CENTRE OF 
FINANCE AND TRADE. — GOLD NOT A MEASURE OF VALUE IN THE CONFEDERACY. — REASONS 
FOR ITS EXTRAORDINAEY APPRECIATION THERE, — COMPARISON OF CONFEDERATE MONEY 

WITH TBE CONTINENTAL CUERENCY IN THE REVOLUTION OF 1776. TWO CAPITAL CAUSES 

OF THE DEPRECIATION OF THE CONFEDERATE MONEY. — THE INFLUENCE OF SPECULATION. — 
HOW THE ENGROSSERS MANAGED IN RICHMOND. — SUMMARY OF THE MISMANAGEMENT OP 
THE CONFEDERATE FINANCES. 

Gettysburg and Vicksburg were twin victories for the Federals — twin 
disasters for the Confederates. They marked the line where the war 
turned, and the fortunes of the Southern Confederacy declined. The dis- 
aster of Vicksburg was a shock to the whole internal economy of the 
South ; and this period of military disaster was coincident with a distress 
in material resources, in which some men already thought to discover signs 
of the fatal decay of the Confederacy. Money has been designated as " the 
sinews of war ; " and when it is known that the Confederate currency de- 
clined a thousand per cent, on the news of these military disasters, it may 
well be comprehended what occasions of alarm and anxiety they were. 
The whole concern of the Confederate finances invites a studious consider- 
ation, which may well take place here at a period which affected so much 



416 THE LOST CAUSE. 

their virtue and integrity. And the subject is so distinct that, without 
regard to any particular date of our narrative, we may extend our view of 
it through the whole period of the war. 



THE FINA2fCIAL SYSTEM OF THE SOTJTHEKN CONFEDEEACT. 

The South was in a condition of complete isolation in the war. The 
laws of finance were less disturbed by extraneous influences than was ever 
the case in any country of equal extent, population and civilization before. 
The community consisted of several millions of people, occupying a large 
territory without a specie circulation, and compelled to establish a thor- 
oughly artificial system of finance adapted to the condition of war. The 
case was anomalous. Yery valuable lessons in finance might be learnsd 
from the history of the Confederate system, if space were allowed to trace 
its development, stej) by step, throughout its extraordinary career, and to 
mark the influence which it exerted upon the social condition, the public 
and private morals, and the fortunes of the Confederacy. It may be said 
generally that the result of the war was powerfully influenced by the con- 
dition of the Confederate finances, as much so as by any other cause. 

It is the most striking peculiarity of modem wars that they are conduct- 
ed chiefly by means of credit in the form of paper issues. The system 
was inaugurated by Great Britain ; and its result is the mammoth debt 
of the British government. The revolutionary governments of France, as 
they succeeded each other in the various stages of transition between the 
autocracy of the Bourbons and the Empire, copied the British example, 
and created enormous debts which shared the fate of the ephemeral pow- 
ers which incurred them. All the governments of Europe, with scarcely 
an exception, now labour under the burden of obligations incurred in expen- 
sive wars. In proportion with the facility of public credit, has been the 
magnitude of the scale on whicli modern wars have been conducted. And 
if in America the people have reason to boast of the stupendous magnitude 
of the armies which they brought into the field, and of the extent and cost- 
liness of their military operations, the marvellous exhibition will be found 
to have been due, not so much to the boundlessness of their resources, as 
to the lavish and reckless manner in which they employed a credit never 
before brought into requisition. Nor would it be over-stepping the bounds 
of truth to say, that the war spirit in either section was fed and stimulated, 
in a very great degree, by the profits which the heavy public expendi- 
tures brought to large classes of persons directly responsible for the war, 
and connected with its operations. This modern scheme of throwing the 
burden of debts incurred in war upon the shoulders of posterity has done 
more to stimulate costly and bloody conflicts between nations and peoples, 



SYSTEMS OF CKEDn IN AVAE. 417 

than all the harmonizing influences of modern civilization and Christianity 
have done to restrain them. Until the system of credit is counterbalanced 
by some other scheme, by which the persons immediately connected with 
the pubhc oj^erations shall be impoverished rather than enriched by a state 
of war, we shall have no occasion to expect the Millennium. 

The three most conspicuous examples of the abuse of credit for pui'poses 
of war, antecedent to those furnished by the two belligerents in the Amer- 
ican conflict, were those of Great Britain, France, and Russia. The debt 
of the British government at the close of the Napoleonic wars, was eight 
hmidred and eighty-five millions of pounds sterling. In March, ]863, after 
a lapse of nearly half a centuiy, embracing the costly expenditures of the 
Crimean war, it had been reduced, by dint of resolute taxation, no lower 
than the amount of seven hundred and eighty million pounds sterling, 
or about thirty-nine hundred millions of dollars. 

The amount of Assignats issued by the Kevolutionary authorities of 
France, counting all the difi"erent series, reached the enormous amount of 
forty thousand millions of francs.* These were followed by a second species 
of paper money called Mandates^ to the amoimt of twenty-four hundred mil- 
lions of francs. The great bulk of both these forms of circulation, amount- 
ing in the aggregate to more than forty-two thousand millions of francs, or 
eighty-five hundred millions of dollars, proved a loss to their holders ; a 
circumstance which is thought to have been fortunate for France rather 
than otherwise, in proving the means of divesting her, at the same time 
with the burden itself, of the spurious authorities that had imposed it. 

The British debt was contracted almost altogether in the form of bonds 
at long dates, upon the faith of Avhich the Bank of England put forth a 
projDortionate amount of its own notes of circulation. It is true that the 
Exchequer bills issued by government for temporary purposes, went direct- 
ly into the hands of the public ; but they also soon found their way, for 
the most part, into the Bank of England ; and constituted, like the bonds, 
a basis of additional circulation. In this respect, it will be observed, the 
English and French systems were essentially difi'erent. In England the 
circulation was not identical with the debentures of government, but was 
issued through the agency of a banking company, which made of the gov- 
ernment bonds a basis for the security of the circulation. In France, the 
government itself put forth its obligations in the form of a currency, de- 
clared it to be the medium of exchange by law, and denounced heavy penal- 
ties against the refusal to accept it as money. The comparative merits of 
the two systems were strikingly exemplified by the result. The French 
issues, as we have seen, went on augmenting in volume until they reached 



• The statement seems incredible ; but it is made on the authority of the American Encyd> 
fedia. 

27 



iI5 THE LOST CAUSE. 

forty-two thousand millions of francs (in the aggregate of Asslgnats and 
Mandates)^ and continued to decline in value until the whole mass of cir- 
culation became utterly valueless. The volume of currency in England, 
on the other hand, never reached an unmanao-eable ajracreffate. The 
circulating notes of the Bank of England never aggregated quite thirty 
millions of pounds sterling, or one hundred and fifty millions of dollars 
Kor did the pound sterling, in proper form, ever experience a depreciation 
comparable with that which has generally attended the excessive issue of 
paper currency, during a state of war, in other countries ; for the pound 
sterling note of England reached its maximum depreciation in 1814, when 
it sank to the value of £5 10s. to the ounce, or about 1.55 to the unit in 
gold. We shall see that in the United States, during the war, the green- 
back dollar sank to the value of 2.85 for one in gold ; and that the Con- 
federate paper dollar sank at the end, to the low value of 60 for one. 

During the protracted wars which the Russian Empire prosecuted for a 
long series of years upon its Circassian frontier, a large employment of 
credit was found to be requisite. An expedient similar to that employed by 
Great Britain was resorted to, in the establishment of an institution called 
the Bank of Assignats. This establishment furnished the proper currency 
of the Empire for many years, and its circulation is believed never to have 
exceeded in periods of the most pressing military exigency more than eight 
hundred and thirty-six millions of roubles. A most remarkable circum- 
stance connected with the history of this circulation is, that it underwent 
a most excessive appreciation, above gold in value, during the winter of 
Napoleon's Russian campaign, rising in value as the invader approached 
the heart of the country, and receding as he retired. 

Unfortunately for themselves, neither of the two belligerents in Amer- 
ica took any measures for establishing a proper relation between the efflux 
and reflux of the currency, during the gigantic war which we have under 
consideration. If a Bank of Exchequer had been established at the begin- 
ning, endowed with functions like those exercised by the Bank of England 
during the first two decades of the present century, having entire control 
of the circulation, and acting as the principal factor of the government in 
the negotiation of its bonds, the evils of a ruinously depreciated cm-rency 
might have been avoided. As it was, each new demand of the govern- 
ment for money, instead of being supplied by the sale of bonds, and the 
receipt of a part of the circulation already outstanding, was met by a new 
and additional issue of notes ; those previously issued still remaining, for 
the most part not needed and not employed, in the hands of the public. 
There was thus a perpetnal efflux of notes of circulation ; and no returning 
influx, to keep up an active demand for them and to sustain their value. 
The pul)lic credit was made the prey of a multitude of sharpers and 
brokers, who could all have been kept in due subordination by a great bank- 



FINANCIAL CONDITION OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH. 419 

ing corporation, having a capital of Inmdreds of millions of dollars, able 
to " place " the public bonds as rapidly as funds were needed ; and, by 
means of large discounts, establishing a steady reflux current of circulation 
back into its own coffers. It is one of the plainest maxims of finance that 
if a currency be issued in a continuous stream, without any measure being 
taken to establish a counter-current of the same circulation back into the 
source from which it issued, depreciation is inevitable. Where a circula- 
tion is put forth through the agency of a bank, it is done in the process 
of discounting the negotiable paper of punctual men of business ; and the 
reflux is created by the return of the same amount of circulation into the 
bank in payment of the discounted paper when it falls due. Every piece 
of paper that is discounted, has its pay-day ; and the reflux of currency 
corresponds with the efllux. The bank may fail ; but this efflux is not 
relaxed by that fact alone ; for the necessity of paying the negotiable pa])er 
which it lield undqr discount, will absorb precisely the amount of circula- 
tion which was issued in the act of discounting it. A powerful bank of 
exchequer, however unnecessary or vicious a part of our Federal machinery 
it may be in periods of peace, is an admirable agency in time of war for 
regulating the heavy circulation which is always found to be one of the 
necessary attendants of a state of warfare. 

ISTeither of the two belligerent governments in the American war took 
the proper pains, if they took any pains at all, to ensure a healthful reflux 
current into the Treasury of the circulation which they so profusely issued. 
The outgo of circulation was enormous and continuous ; ^^■hile there was 
no income at all, or if there was any, none sufficient to create any sensible 
demand for the currency, or to impart any stable value to it. 

Let us see briefly, for purposes of illustration, what was the financial 
condition of the two belligerents at the close of the war. The aggregate 
debt incurred by the Federal government, in the progress of the war, has 
been officially stated, in frequent monthly bulletins from the Treasury 
Department, at about two thousand eight hundred millions of dollars. It 
is the generally received opinion in financial and official circles that the 
debt, when all audited and settled, will reach the round sum of three 
thousand millions of dollars. There was outstanding in the United States 
in the form of currency issued from the Federal Treasury, on the 31st of 
July, 1865, the aggregate sum of seven hundred and eleven millions of 
dollars ; composed of five per cent, notes, six per cent, compound interest 
notes, greenbacks not bearing interest, and fractional currency. Up to 
that date, the circulation of the National Banks had reached one hundicd 
and fifty seven millions, and the supposed amount of the notes of State 
banks still in circulation, was about eighty millions. The aggregatq cir- 
culation in the Northern States, therefore, had reached, at the end of the 
war, the prodigious amount of about nine hundred and fifty millions of 



120 THE LOST CArSE. 

dollars. Tlie circulation of the Bank of England, we have seen, did not 
exceed, at the end of the Napoleonic wars, one Imndred and fifty millions 
of dollars, which is not one-sixth of the amount of the circulation which 
the war left in the North. The price of gold in New York, compared with 
greenbacks, for several months after the close of the war fluctuated near 
the point of one for one and forty-five hundredths ; while the maximun? 
depreciation of paper, during the war, was two and eighty-five hundredths. 
Tlie maximum depreciation of the pound sterling note in England was one 
and fifty-five hundredths. 

The total cost of the war to the Confederate government had reached 
at its close, according to the opinion of intelligent officers of the Treasury, 
about thirty-five hundred millions of dollars. Of this total about twenty- 
five hundred millions consisted of eight, seven, six, and four per cent, 
bonds of long dates ; of Treasury notes outstanding of both the old and 
new issue ; of unsettled accounts due from government, audited or in the 
process of being audited in the accounting departments ; and of debt that 
had been cancelled in the form of the old currency, and income received in 
the form of taxes. The residue of the expenditure remained in the form 
of unpaid claims against Government in the hands of the people, for prop- 
erty purchased or impressed and damages sustained from the army. 
In fact, the cost of the war on the Confederate side, measured in Confed- 
erate currency, was nearly the same as that on the Federal side ; for it 
is to be observed that the three thousand millions of dollars at which the 
Federal debt is generally estimated, embraces only the Federal debt prop- 
er ; and does not embrace the expenditures made by States, cities, counties, 
and corporations generally. An intelligent authority classifies the war 
debt of the North as follows : Federal debt, three thousand millions ; 
State debt one hundred and thirty-five millons ; city debt, one hundred 
millions ; and county debt five hundred millions ; making a grand aggre- 
gate of about three thousand seven hundred and fifty millions of dollars. 
The municipal indebtedness of the South, incurred on account of the war, 
was very inconsiderable. The complete disorganization which attended the 
disastrous termination of the struggle renders it impossible to amve at an 
exact knowledge as yet either of the Confederate debt or of the municipal 
debt ; but the latter was comparatively so inconsiderable as to constitute 
scarcely an appreciable element in the grand total of the Confed'^rate 
finances. The system of bounties was wholly unknown at the Sonth ; 
a patriotic public opinion and an energetic conscription sufficing to force 
every man of self-respect into the army, or into some branch of the public 
service. The bounty system, with its frauds and corruptions, was a feature 
of the war known only to the North. 

"We come now to speak more exclusively of the course of finance in the 
Southern States. Early in the winter of the first year of the war, and 



FINANCIAL MEASUEES OF THE CONFEDEKACT. 42 J 

rather earlier than was supposed to be necessary, the banks of the South- 
ern States suspended specie payments. Tlie specie in their vaults at the 
time, as shown by their published reports, was about thirty millions of 
dollars in the total, and the paper circulation outstanding, in the form of 
bank notes, was about fifty millions. An estimate of the quantity of 
specie at the time in circulation among the people of the South must be 
conjectural ; but the weight of intelligent opinion is in favour of the con- 
clusion that this amount did not exceed twenty millions of dollars. Thus 
the war found the South in possession of only about fifty millions of coin, 
and with a paper circulation afloat of about the same amount. No reports 
were made to the Confederate authorities by the banks, of their accounts, 
and the foregoing data are derived from reports made shortly antecedent 
to the war. The specie in the hands of the people was of course imme- 
diately hoarded ; and was afterwards employed to a great extent in contra- 
band trade ; that in the vaults of the banks remained for a long time un- 
used ; but afterwards was in part secreted, in part taken possession of by 
the Confederate Government, or turned over to its custody, and some of 
it captured. Yet much of it must have gone abroad through the blockade 
during the war, as the termination of the struggle revealed a very small 
portion of the thirty millions, at first held by the banks, as still in their 
possession. 

The suspension of the banks early in the winter of 1861-'62 was not 
from any inability to protect their circulation. This latter had recently 
gone down very much in amount ; and the banks were abundantly able to 
provide for it. The sus23ension was resorted to for the purpose of prevent- 
ing the drain of specie which would have resulted from the large purchases 
of merchandise at the Noi-th which the prospect of a long embargo would 
have induced. The specie was saved ; but it proved a curse rather than a 
blessing to the country. If by some talismanic power every dollar of it 
could have been transformed into iron coins like those of Lycurgus, the 
Confederacy would have been a gainer. It was extensively used in the 
smuggling trade throughout the war, and the goods brought in through its 
agency were sold at such enormous prices in Confederate currency as to 
contribute very powerfully to the discredit of that cii'culation among the 
people. True, the patriotic men and w^omen of the country prided them- 
selves in homespun ; but far too many manifested a more eager desire for 
exotic fabrics than ever before. 

The first financial measure of the Confederate Government was the 
issuing of the fifteen million loan, bearing eight per cent, interest, payable 
in specie, for which an export duty of one-eighth of a cent per pound on 
cotton was leaded and pledged. The second financial measure w^as the 
negotiation of heavy loans from most of the banks in the form of discounts 
upon negotiable notes drawn by the Secretary of the Treasury. After 



# f22 THE LOST CAUSE. 

these measures other loans in heavy amounts, upon bonds at long dateSj 
were periodically made ; and the baneful system was instituted of Treas- 
ury notes put out in the form of notes of circulation, in amounts ranging 
from the fractions of a dollar up to notes of five hundred dollars. If to 
these measures we add the cotton bonds, which were employed in England 
and Europe for the purchase of war material, and the cotton loan upon 
which they were based at home, we shall have mentioned all the leading 
measures of finance employed by the Confederacy. 

The fifteen million loan was early disposed of at satisfactory rates. Foi 
a time the interest which had been stipulated to be paid in specie was actu- 
ally discharged according to the terms of the contract ; but before the close 
of the war the bondholders were either not paid at all or consented to ar- 
rangements less difficult to the Treasury than the payment of specie. This 
fifteen million loan in fact produced sore inconvenience to the Government 
during the later years of the war, and was the first subject with reference 
to which it was obliged to forfeit its faith to the holders of its paper. 

The temporary loans negotiated from the banks were easily provided 
for. By the time that the loans matured, the Treasury was able to dis- 
charge them by means of the Treasury notes prepared for circulation. 
But it was found in the sequel that these accommodations cost the banks 
dearly. It has already been mentioned that at the outbreak of the war the 
circulation of the Southern banks was quite inconsiderable in amount. To 
meet the demand of the Government for loans, the banks very consider 
ably increased their outstanding circulation ; in fact, they doubled, and, in 
many instances, qradrupled it ; a thing which was perfectly safe during a 
suspension of specie payments. Indeed, a large increase of circulation was 
found to be quite necessary, after the disappearance of specie and under 
the stimulus imparted by the war to all branches of trade. The fifty mil- 
lions of currency found in circulation by the war was wholly inadequate 
to the active state of business superinduced by the war. The banks accom- 
plished two objects by one measure. In granting a loan to the Secretary 
of the Treasury, they placed a large amount of funds in the hands of the 
Confederate Government ; and they supplied, by the same act, the de- 
ficiency of currency which was so stringently felt by the people. But the 
act proved their ruin. The notes of circulation which they thus put forth, 
following that law of finance which makes a base currency drive out of 
circulation one less base, were hoarded. The bank notes, when lent by 
these institutions to the Government soon spread over the country. They 
were succeeded by similar paper issued in the form of currency by the 
Confederate Government. The Treasury notes were distrusted, and in 
proportion as they were distrusted, the notes of the banks were hoarded. 
The law of finance which has been adverted to had a qtnck and striking ex- 
emplification. The notes of the old familiar banks of the States were reserved 



FINANCIAL MEASITKES OF THE CONFEDEKACY. ' 423 

and put away by the people, and did not emerge from their retreat until 
after the close of the war. They then began again to be seen in the hands 
of the people. But they had come forth from their hiding places too late. 
The banks had been ruined, and were found unable to pay any part of 
their debts except a percentage upon their circulation. The notes of the 
different institutions varied in market value according to the accidental cir- 
cmnstances which intlucnced the original amount of accommodations which 
they had granted in 1861 to the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury. 

In the aggregate these accommodations had considerably exceeded the 
capital stock of the banks. The Confederate Treasury had paid off the 
accommodation notes due the banks with Treasury notes. The whole 
amount of private discounts due the banks from individuals were dis- 
charged by the agency of the same medium. Thus the whole capital stock 
and assets of the banks were soon transformed into Treasury notes ; while 
the heavy amount of their own notes which they had lent to the Gov- 
ernment, disappeared from circulation and went into private hoards, 
where they could not be reached. They had a heavy debt outstanding, 
which could not be discharged ; and their whole available means consisted 
of a daily depreciating currency, which they were obliged to receive in 
payment of all dues to themselves. At the close of the war this currency 
turned into dead leaves, and they were left in the possession of no assets at 
all except the small amount of real estate occupied by their counting 
houses, and the small modicum of specie which they had been able to save 
from taxes, impressment, and robbery. Stockholders thus lost all their 
shares, and the value of assets in hand was sufiScient-to meet but a meagre 
percentage of the outstanding circulation, which the banks had impru- 
dently put forth in originally granting such liberal loans to the Confeder- 
ate Government. 

With the negotiation of the fifteen million loan, and the exhaustion of 
the means of the banks, all regular financiering ceased with the Confed- 
erate Government. After that, money was manufactured by machinery to 
meet the wants of the Government, and paid out as rapidly as it was 
needed. Thus the volume of the circulation increased almost in equal 
ratio with the expenditures of the Government. Considerable loans in the 
form of bonds at long dates were authorized, and a good deal of success was 
obtained in disposing of the bonds. But these sales were exceedingly out 
of proportion to the magnitude of the expenditures ; and the heavy margin 
of deficiency was boldly made up by the issue of Treasury notes. We 
might recite here in detail the various acts of Congress that were passed 
authorizing the difterent loans and directing the preparation and employ- 
ment of Treasury notes of circulation. But the recital would be tedious, 
dreary, and insipid. Suffice it to say that no measure whatever was taken 
to secure a reflux of the .circulation to the source of issue, and thereby to 



424 . THE LOST CAUSE. 

restrict tlio volume of currency within manageable limits, and create a 
demand for it essential to the maintenance of its value. 

The patriotism of the people, however, provided a partial demand for 
these notes. The growing redundance of currency produced high prices ; 
and high j)rices produced large funds for investment in the hands of the 
wealthy classes. These made it a point of patriotism to invest their sur- 
plus caj^ital in the securities of the Government. Legislatures authorized 
and the courts directed the funds held by fiduciaries to be invested in the 
eight and seven per cent, bonds of the Confederacy. ISTecessity also came 
in aid of patriotism to promote these investments. The great majority of 
cajDitalists knew not what better disposition to make of their Treasury notes 
than to convert them into Confederate bonds. The bonds drew interest ; 
the notes drew none ; except indeed those hundred dollar seven-thirty 
notes, which in fact were bonds. For a brief period after the first rise of 
prices consequent upon the inflation, real estate came briskly into market, 
and a great deal of it changed hands. But this species of investment soon 
terminated. Speculation in the necessaries of life and in the staples of the 
country was resorted to extensively by the class of men known as shai-pers ; 
but it was distasteful to respectable people and highly disreputable in pub- 
lic opinion. The consequence was, that the wealthy and respectable capi- 
talists, who were men of public spirit and patriotic impulses, eschewed 
these questionable operations, and converted their treasury notes into in- 
terest-bearing bonds, drawn at long dates. Many, indeed, in an unbounded 
faith in the success of the Confederacy, purchased negroes ; but the amount 
of this property available for purchase was very small in proportion to the 
vast capital accumulated in the hands of the people. 

It so happened, therefore, that the very redundance of the currency 
produced in partial degree a remedy for its own cure. The very excess of 
circulation produced a necessity for its conversion into bonds. But the 
misfortune was, that the remedy, as long as it lasted, always came too late 
for the cure of the evil. It did not come into action until the depreciation 
of the currency had taken place. The reflux did not return by a natural 
flow, but resulted from a damming-up process. A competent agency 
should have been employed, which should have watched, directed, and 
controlled the movement from the beginning ; an agency clothed with 
absolute power over the circulation, and endowed with a sufficient capital 
to ensure a ready sale at reasonable prices of the public bonds. 

The progress of the depreciation of the Confederate money was at first 
gradual ; but afterwards very rapid. In January, 1862, a dollar in gold 
^as worth at the brokers' shops in Richmond one dollar twenty cents in 
currency. In July, 1862, it was still worth one dollar twenty cents. In 
January, 1863, it had fallen to three dollars ten cents. In midsummer, 
1863, the value varied from twelve to twenty. It afterwards, as we shall 



i 



DEPEECIATION OF COKFEDEEATE MONEY. 425 

see, fell mncli lower. It must be observed, however, that these brokers* 
rates, M-ere invariably a long period in advance of the rates acted upon in 
the interionr. As late as the summer of 1S62, Confederate money was 
taken at par in the settlement of all transactions originating before the war^ 
and made the basis of the general transactions of the country at the old 
rate of prices. The brokers' rates were either unknown to the people or 
totally disregarded by them. Kot until the volume of the currency had 
Bwollen beyond all reasonable proportion, did the people at large consent 
to fix a depreciated value upon this money. Even then they did so under 
compulsion. Remorseless speculators had succeeded in engrossing the 
entire stock of many of the comforts and prime necessities of life. These 
were held at exorbitant prices ; and in order to compass the means of pur- 
chasing them, the yeomanry of the country were obliged to rate their own 
proj)erty at higher prices in Confederate money than the old prices obtain- 
ing before the war. It is a well-known fact that the Kichmond rates of 
Confederate money were, throughout the war, far below those which pre- 
vailed in the Confederacy at large ; and it is a general fact, that the rates 
of this money improved as the distance from Richmond increased. This 
fact was partly due to the circumstance, that Richmond was the great focus 
of Government disbursements, and was constantly flooded to excess with 
the currency ; partly to the circumstance, that it Avas the base from which 
all smuggling operations were carried on, at which of course gold for the 
smuggling trade was more in demand, and commanded the highest prices ; 
and thirdly, to the circumstance that it was the centre and resort of the 
speculating classes, and the principal depository of their wares, at which 
the final sales and last profits on the commodities bought up in the country 
for speculation, were realized. It may be remarked, without a material 
aberration from the truth, that after the first eighteen months of the war 
had elapsed, and the Confederate money had become very redundant, the 
business of the country, at a distance from Richmond, was done, for prob- 
ably as long a period as twelve months, upon the basis of five for one in 
Confederate currency. After that period, the change of rate to fifteen or 
twenty for one was rather abrupt ; and upon the latter basis transactions 
proceeded for another twelve months ; after which the rate was very un- 
Bettled in the iuteriour. 

Another observation must be made with reference to the brokers' prices 
of gold. A comparison of Confederate money with gold did not, during 
the war, afford a true criterion of the value of either commxodity. Gold 
was unnaturally scarce and dear in the Confederacy. The old dollar's value, 
in property not affected by the condition of war, was not suflicient to pur- 
chase a dollar in gold. Real estate did not approximate the prices in gold 
which it had commanded before the war. Boarding at the best hotela 
could be procured for fifty cents a day in gold, which had cost two dollars 



426 THE LOST CAUSE. 

and fifty cents before the war. A suit of clothing which before the wai 
would have cost thirty dollars, could now be obtained for ten or fifteen in 
gold. In short, gold had greatly appreciated in the Confederacy, and the 
gold dollar no longer represented the old dollar's worth. The extraordi- 
nary demand for it produced by blockade running, and the smuggling 
trade, and the small supply of it which the war had found in the Confed- 
eracy, rendered still smaller by the process of hoarding, had imparted to 
it an extraordinary value. It had thus ceased to be a standard of value, 
and had become a very scarce commodity of commerce. The real value 
of Confederate money is not to be estimated by the quantity of gold which 
it commanded at the brokers' shops. 

The case of gold was different at the North, from that which we havA 
just described. There commerce was unaffected by a blockade ; the usual 
supplies of gold continued to be received ; no extraordinary demands of 
specie for exportation were experienced, and it remained, throughout the 
period of war, as accurate and reliable a standard of value as ever. The 
depreciation of Federal currency can therefore be measured with absolute 
certainty by comparing it with gold. In the Confederacy, however, the 
case was not the same. As we have seen, gold bore an abnormal value ; 
and conclusions in regard to the depreciation of Confederate money founded 
merely upon its relation to gold, would be erroneous. The old dollar's 
worth, if it could be definitely ascertained, in such commodities as were 
not aft'ected by the condition of war, would be the true standard of value. 
Until the final six or eight months of the Confederacy, the general transac- 
tions of the interiour country proceeded on a basis of value for Confederate 
money measured by the old dollar's worth, which was, much higher than 
the values furnished by the brokers' quotations in Richmond. 

It is interesting to observe the similarity of career which is presented 
in the cases of the money of the Southern Confederacy, and of tlie Con- 
gress of the first American Confederation. We have ah'eady stated the 
gradual depreciation of the one. The progress of the depreciation in the 
old Continental money, though somewhat more tardy, was in the same 
degree. In May, 1777, the Continental paper dollar was worth at the rate 
of two and two-thirds for one in specie. In December it was worth four 
for one. In March, 1778, it was worth five for one ; in December, six for 
one. In February, 1779, it was worth ten for one ; in June, twenty ; in 
September, twenty-four ; in December, thirty-nine. After the year 1779 it- 
seemed to have no value. The total amount of this old Continental money 
that was issiied, was two hundred millions of dollars ; and it was worth to 
those who received it, at the period when paid out by the Government, 
only thirty-six and a half milh'ons of dollars. A similar scaling of the 
money of the Confederate Treasury would reduce the cost of the war on the 
Southern side to less than a thousand millions of dollars. The differ- 



COMMEKCIAL SPECULATION IN THE WAK. 427 

ence between that sum and tlie nominal cost measures the aggregate de- 
preciation of the money. 

The principal cause of the depreciation of this money, in the last twelve 
months of the war, was the distrust of success entertained by the classes 
w^ho controlled the value of the money. The principal causes of its depre- 
cation in the antecedent j)eriod, were the excessive issues of it by Govern- 
ment, and the influence of speculation. It is probably useless to declaim 
against a vice so prejudicial as speculation to both the individual and general 
interests of a country circumstanced like the Confederacy. It is a display of 
the worst form of selfishness ; a selfishness that feeds upon the privation, want, 
and necessity of fellow-citizens engaged in mortal struggle with a formi- 
dable public enemy ; a selfishness that appropriates all that it can grasp, at 
a time wdien each individual should give up for the general good all that 
can be spared ; a selfishness worse than tliat for which Ananias and Sap- 
phira were struck down by the hand of God, inasmuch as it seeks not only 
to withhold what is one's own, but to engross also w'hatever else can be 
compassed by craft and greed. The best communities contain persons of 
this sordid temper ; and the temptation to its indulgence in a country iso- 
lated and beleaguered by armies and blockading fleets, where the supplies 
of every article are limited, are too strong to be resisted by the class 
whose inclinations are set in that direction. The speculation commenced 
in such articles as cut nails, salt, and leather. There were but two nail 
factories in the Confederacy, and the stocks of these establishments were 
accessible and easily engrossed. Within the first six months of the war, 
the entire stock of cut nails in the Confederacy were in the hands of less 
than half a dozen speculators in Richmond ; and the price was abruptly 
put up from four dollars to seven, and then to ten per keg. There was but 
one considerable saline in the Confederacy, and this was operated by a single 
firm, which ran up the price of this prime necessary of life, within two years, 
from the ante-war price of one cent per pound, to twenty-five cents per 
pound in specie or fifty cents in Treasury notes. Leather w^as one of those 
articles which, though tanned in very numerous establishments conducted 
on a small scale throughout the country, yet w^as everywhere found to be in 
smaller quantity than was needed by the people, and which might safely 
be bought up right and left wherever found. These arc but examples of 
the subjects of the speculation and extortion that became rife throughout 
the Confederacy. The efiect was greatly to augment and aggravate the 
burden of the war upon the people ; but its most serious evil was in the 
depreciating influence it exerted upon the currency. The great mass of 
the people were desirous to receive this money at the normal rates ; but 
finding themselves obliged to pay extortionate prices for commodities 
which they stood in need of purchasing, they were driven, against their 
mil, to demand increased prices for the products and property which they 



4:28 THE LOST CAUSE. 

sold. The fury and intensity of speculation forced tne people into reluc- 
tant acquiescence in the depreciation of the currency. But there is this 
consolatoi-y observation to be made on the subject : namely, that the 
classes who devoted themselves assiduously to speculation, as a general 
rule, came out losers at the close of the war ; while the masses of people 
who eschewed this disreputable avocation, generally saved a comfortable 
portion of their original means. 

That the depreciation of the Confederate currency was partially super- 
induced by speculation and circumstances other than its mere redundancy, 
is sufficiently proved by the fact, that the grand total of circulation in the 
iN'orth reached the stupendous figure of nine hundred and fifty millions of 
dollars, while the depreciation of greenbacks, at the close of the war, was 
less than one and a half for one. It is plain, therefore, that depreciation is 
not the necessary result of mere redundancy, and may be prevented by 
provident and timely measures. The ability w4th which the Federal 
finances w^ere conducted, especially in avoiding this depreciation, is one of 
the most remarkable incidents of the war. 

If early and proper measures had been adopted, the Confederate cur- 
rency would doubtless, likewise, have proved as manageable as any other 
branch of the Confederate finances. These measures should have looked 
to the provision of an adequate demand for the circulation that was issued 
in such profusion. This demand could have been abundantly established 
by means of taxation, of the sale of Government bonds of long dates, and 
by the intervention of a system of discounts through the instrumentality 
of a Bank of Exchequer. The circulation should not' have been issued 
directly from the Treasury. It should have been placed under the abso 
lute control of an issuing agency, which would have served as a regulator 
and balance-sheet in the movement, and preserved an equilibrium between 
the efflux and influx of the circulation. Taxation should have been im- 
posed from the beginning, and executed promptly ; not postponed several 
years, and then tardily put in force. The sales of bonds should have been 
conducted by a great and respectable banking institution, directed by emi- 
nent and reputable financiers ; not entrusted to ignorant and irrespon- 
sible stock and exchange brokers. Such a financial institution could have 
established and maintained an influx of the circulation commensurate with 
the efflux. With this reflux in full flow, the volume of the currency might 
have been increased with impunity. And, if, besides, the circulation had 
been in the form of notes of the bank, rather than in that of notes of the 
Treasury ; then, when the unfortunate end came, the debts due to the 
bank would still have given a partial value to this circulation ; and pre- 
vented the total wreck of cash means which at last overtook the people of 
the South, 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

THK NEW ATTEMPT UPON FOET SUMTEE AND CHAELESTON. — GEN. GILLMOEE's COMMAND. — HIS 
PLAN OF OPEEATIONS. — WHAT WAS PEOPOSED BY THE EEDUCTION OF THE TVOEKS ON MOE- 
EI8 ISLAND. — A BASE OF OPEEATIONS ON FOLLY ISLAND. — HOW GEN. BEAUEEGAED "WAS 
BLINDED AND DECEIVED. — FOETY-SEVEN GUNS OF THE ENEMY UNMASKED. — THE ASSAULT 
ON FOET WAGNEB. — 6ALLANTEY OF A CONNECTICUT EEGIMENT. — THE ASSAULT EEPULSED. 

GEN. BEAUEEGAEd's PLANS. — HIS OBJECT IN HOLDING MOREIS ISLAND. — SECOND ASSAULT 

ON FOET WAGNER IN CONJUNCTION WITH DAHLGEEN's FLEET. — THE BOMBARDMENT OF 
FOET WAGNEE. — PROFOUND AND SIGNIFICANT SILENCE OF THE GAEBISON. — ADVANCE OF 
THE STOEMING COLUMN. ITS REPULSE. — TEEEIBLE SCENES OF CAENAGE. — SIEGE OPERA- 
TIONS. — APPEALS TO THE SOUTH CAROLINA PLANTERS, AND THEIE INDIFFERENCE. — GILL- 
MORE PREPARES TO BOMBARD AND DESTROY CHAELESTON. — " THE GREEK FIEE." — " THE 
SWAMP ANGEL." — GILLMOEE's NOTICE OF BOMBAEDMENT. — SHAEP AND MEMOEABLE EEPLY 
OF GEN. BEAUREGARD. — COWARDLY REJOICINGS IN THE NORTH, — THE BOMBAEDMENT A 
FAILUEE. — ATTEMPTED DEMOLITION OF FOET SUMTEE. — HOW FAE THE FORT WAS INJURED 
BY THE BOMBAEDMENT. — GILLMOEE ANNOUNCES ITS REDUCTION. — THE ANNOUNCEMENT 
FALSE AND AB3UED. — PE0GEES3 OF THE SIEGE OPEEATIONS AGAINST FORT WAGNER. — A 
TERRIFIC FIRE OPENED UPON IT. — SURPASSING GRANDEUR OF THE SCENE. — GILLMORE PLANS 
ANOTHER ASSAULT UPON THE FORT. — THE CONFEDERATES EVACUATE IT AND MORRIS 
ISLAND. — WHAT GEN. BEAUREGARD ACCOMPLISHED BY THE RETENTION OF MORRIS ISLAND 
FOR TWO MONTHS. — THE ISLAND NOT THE KEY TO CHAELESTON. — ADMIRAL DAHLGREN 
REFUSES TO ASCEND THE HARBOUR WITH HIS lEON-CLADS. — HE SUMMONS FOET SUMTEE TO 
SUEEENDER. — BEAUEEGARd's REPLY. — A BOAT-ATTACK ON THE FORT. — ITS DISASTROUS 
REPULSE. — THE ENEMY's OPERATIONS AGAINST CHARLESTON DEGENERATE INTO A CHRONIC 
AND FRUITLESS BOMBARDMENT. — DISAPPOINTMENT IN THE NORTH. 

The most remarkable military event of the midsummer of 1863 was 
the successful defence of Charleston against a most imposing demonstration 
of the enemy's power by land and by sea. We have seen how unsuccessful 
was the naval attack upon this city in April, 1863. It was not long, however, 
before another attempt was planned upon Fort Sumter and Charleston, the 
steps of which were the military occupation of Morris Island and the estab- 
lishment of batteries on that island to assist in the reduction of Fort 
Sumter. The establishment of these batteries and the reduction of the 
Confederate works — Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg — was a matter of 



430 THE LOST CAUSE. 

great engineermg skill, and Gen. Q. A. Gillmore was selected to command 
the land forces of the enemy engaged in these operations. Morris Island 
was on the south side of the entrance to the harbour, about three and a 
half miles in length, low, narrow, and sandy, and separated from the main- 
land adjacent to it by soft, deep, and impracticable marshes. Its capture, 
although principally designed to open a way to the enemy's iron-clads, 
would also serve the purpose of making the blockade of Charleston har- 
bour more thorough and complete, by allowing a portion or all of the 
blockading fleet to lie inside the bar. But the most important object, as 
we have indicated, was to secure a position whence it was hoped Fort 
Sumter might be demolished, and the co-operation of a heavy artillery fire 
extended to the fleet, when it was ready to move in, run by the batteries 
on James and Sullivan's Islands, and reach the city. 

Gen. Gillmore assumed command on the 12th June, and at once pro- 
posed to commence a base of operations on Folly Island, This island, the 
south end of which controlled the waters of Stone Harbour and Inlet and 
the water approaches from James Island, had been occupied in force by 
the enemy since the Yth April. But Gen. Beauregard appears to have had 
no idea of what was going on there ; he never made a reconnoisance of 
the enemy's outposts on the island ; and he was bitterly accused in the 
Richmond Sentinel^ the organ of President Davis' administration, for a 
want of vigilance, which had permitted the enemy, unknown to him, to 
construct a base of operations actually within speaking distance of his 
pickets. It is true that the enemy threw up earthworks and mounted 
heavy guns on Folly Island under a screen of thick undergrowth ; but it is 
certainly to the last degree surprising that he should have succeeded in 
secretly placing in battery forty-seven pieces of artillery so near to the 
Confederate lines that a loud word might have revealed the work, and ex- 
posed moreover to a flank and reverse view fi-om their tall observatories on 
James Island. Indeed there was a circumstance yet more curious. A 
blockade runner had been chased ashore just south of the entrance to Light- 
house Inlet, and it actually occurred that the vessel was wrecked by 
Confederate soldiers within pistol range of the enemy's battery on 
Folly Island, without their being in the least aware of such a grim 
neighbour. 

This battery was ready to open fire on the 6th July. A plan of attack 
upon Morris Island was now deliberately formed, one part of which was a 
strono- demonstration of Gen. Terry's division, some four thousand infantry, 
on James Island so as to draw ofl' a portion of the Confederate force on 
Morris Island. While this demonstration was taking place, two thousand 
men of Gen. Strong's brigade were to embark in small boats in Folly 
River, efi'ect a landing on Morris Island, and, at a given signal, attempt to 
carry Fort "Wagner by assault. The batteries on the north end of Folly 



J 



ASSAULT ON FOET WAGNEK. 431 

Island were also ordered to be unmasked, by openinpj out the embrasures 
and cutting away tlie brushwood in front of tliem. 

At daybreak of tlie lOtli July, forty launches containing Strong's as- 
saulting column crept up Folly Eiver with muffled oar-locks ; the iron- 
clad fleet crossed the bar, and took up its position in the main ship-channel 
off J\Iorris Island ; two hundred axemen suddenly sprung from behind the 
batteries on Folly Island, and felled the trees which hid them from view ; 
embrasure after embrasure was laid bare ; and at five o'clock the first gun 
was heard from the suddenly revealed battery, and the dense white smoke 
which rose above the tall pines marked the new line of conflict. Mean- 
while the assaulting column had landed ; the Confederate lines were drawn 
within eight hundred yards of Fort "Wagner ; and ofiensive operations were 
suspended for the day. . 

An assault on Fort Wagner was ordered at five o'clock the next morn- 
ing. The Seventh Connecticut Regiment was to take the lead, followed 
by the Seventy-Sixth Pennsylvania and Ninth Maine. Gen. Strong, who 
led the assaulting column, gave a Cromwellian order : " Aim low, and 
put your trust in God ! " The Connecticut soldiers took the double-quickj 
and with a cheer rushed for the works. Before they reached the outer 
works, they got a terrible fire from the Confederate rifles, and the fort 
opened with three 8-incli howitzers, heavily charged with grape and canis- 
ter. The men went over the outer works with an extraordinary courage, 
that must be recorded to their honour, and were advancing to the crest of 
the parapet, when it was discovered that the regiments which were to sup- 
port them had staggered back and lost their distance. The Connecticut 
regiment was left to eflfect its retreat through a sheet of fire. Nearly one 
half of them were killed or wounded. But the loss of the Confederates 
was quite as large. Gen. Beauregard estimated his losses in opposing the 
landing of the enemy at three hundred killed and wounded, including six- 
teen ofticers. Tlie attack was undoubtedly a surprise to him, as he had 
persisted in the belief that the demonstration against Charleston would be 
made by the old route — James Island — and accordingly had almost strip- 
ped Morris Island of his artillerymen and infantry, to meet the advance 
of Terry. 

But although the assault on Fort Wagner was repulsed, the remissness 
of Gen. Beauregard with respect to the battery on Folly Island was to cost 
dear enough. It compelled the evacuation of all the fortified positions of 
the Confederates on the south end of Mori-is Island ; in fact, surrendered 
all the island except about one mile on the north end, which included Fort 
Wagner and Fort Gregg on Cumming's Point ; and virtually made the 
reduction of these works but a question of time. It was very clear that 
the enemy, having once obtained a foothold on Morris Island, would even- 
tually compel an evacuation by the operations of siege, and that it was im« 



432 THE LOST CAUSE. 

possible to defend forever a small island cut off from communication by an 
enormous fleet. It only remained for Gen. Beauregard to repair as far as 
possible the errour lie had already committed, and to find some compensa- 
tion for what had already occurred. And well did he do this secondary 
duty. Admitting the impracticability of defending Morris Island after the 
position of the enemy on it was fully established and covered by the iron- . 
clads, Gen. Beauregard yet appreciated the opportunity of holding the 
island long enough to replace Sumter by interiour positions, and saw clearly 
that every day of defence by Wagner was vital to that of Charleston. 
For two months this policy was successful. 

Gen. Gillmore was not content with his first essay to take Fort Wagner 
by storm. He held a conference with Admiral Dahlgren, commanding 
the fieet, and determined to attempt, with the combined fire of the land 
batteries and the gunboats, to dismount the principal guns of the work, 
and either drive the Confederates from it, or open the way to a successful 
assault. Batteries were accordmgly established, and were ready to open 
fire on the 18th July, when the enemy's fieet, consisting of four Monitors, 
the Ironsides, a frigate, and four gunboats, some of which threw shell from 
mortars, closed in opposite Fort Wagner. 

About noon the enemy's vessels commenced hurling their heaviest shot 
and shell around, upon, and within Fort Wagner, and, with intervals of 
but a very few minutes, continued this terrible fire, until one hour after the 
sun had gone down. Yast clouds of sand, mud, and timber were sent high 
up into the air. Forty-eight hours the Monitors and the Ironsides had 
kept up a continuous fire, and Fort Wagner had not surrendered. For 
eight hours, fifty-four guns from the land batteries had hurled their shot 
and shell within her walls, and still she fiaunted the battle-fiag of the Con- 
federacy in the face of the enemy. Once during the day the fiag was shot 
down. Immediately it was run up about ten feet above the parajDct, a 
little cluster of men rallied around it, waved their hats, and then disap- 
peared, and were not again seen during the day. There was no other sign 
o£ human life about the fort. It appeared as if the garrison was dead or' 
conquered. " But," said a Federal officer, who watched the scene, '' there 
were a few later developments that proved their opinion was the correct 
one who said this profound silence on the rebel side was significant, not of 
defeat and disaster, but of ultimate success in repulsing our assault ; that 
they were keeping themselves under cover until they could look into the 
eyes of our men, and send bullets through their heads, and would then 
Bwarm by thousands with every conceivable deadly missile in their hands, 
and drive us in confusion and with terrible slaughter back to our en 
trenchments." 

Gillmore had selected the time of twilight for the storming party to 
move to the attack, in order that it might not bo distinctly seen from the 



\ 



SECOND ASSAULT ON FOKT WAGNEK, 433 

James Island and Sullivan's Island batteries, and from Fort Sumter. But 
this time there was to be no surprise. As the bombardment relaxed, it 
was known at Fort "Wagner that such a demonstration on the part of the 
enemy was not without its object ; and every man was ordered by Gen. 
Taliaferro, who commanded the fort, to the parapet to prepare for the ex- 
pected assault of the enemy. 

At dusk the assaulting oolumn was fonned on the beach. A regiment 
of negro soldiers, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, was, for peculiar reasons, 
put in the extreme advance. There were eleven regiments in solid column 
As the head of it debouched from the first parallel, a tremendous fire froni 
the barbette guns on Fort Sumter, from the batteries on Cumming's Point, 
and from all the guns on Fort Wagner, opened upon it. The guns from 
Wagner swept the beach, and those from Sumter and Cumming's Point 
enfiladed it on the left. Still the column staggered on within eighty yards 
of the fort. And now a compact and most destructive musketry lire was 
poured upon it from the parapet, along which gleamed a fringe of fire. 
In five minutes the first line of the enemy had been shot, bayoneted, or 
were in full retreat. The First Brigade, under the lead of Gen, Strong, 
failed to take the fort. The Second recoiled ; and the few troops that had 
clambered to the parapet, now found the most desperate task to efi'ect a 
retreat. It was a night black with tempest. Even if they surrendered, 
the shell of Sumter were thickly falling around them in the darkness, and, 
as prisoners, they could not be safe until victory, decisive and unques- 
tioned, rested with one or the other belligerent. It was a retreat of untold 
horrours. Men rolled in the ditch, or dragged their bloody bodies through 
the sand-hills, on their hands and knees. About midnight there was 
silence at last ; the battle was over ; the ocean beach was crowded with 
the dead, the dying, and the wounded. The loss of the enemy was severe 
— fifteen hundred and fifty killed and wounded, according to his own 
statement, which must have been below the truth, as the Confederates 
buried six hundred of his dead left on the field. Their own loss was not 
more than one hundred in killed and wounded. 

After this second successful defence of Fort Wagner the remainder of 
the month of July, and the early part of August, were employed by the 
enemy in erecting siege-works, and mounting heavy siege-guns, prej^aratory 
to the bombardment of Fort Sumter, as it was found that Fort Wagner did 
not interfere with the engineer corps at work. Meanwhile Gen. Beauregard 
and the Mayor of Charleston issued another urgent appeal to the landed pro- 
prietors and others to send in their negroes to work on the fortifications ; 
and the Governor of the State made an even stronger appeal. There was, 
however, much indifi'erence shown in promptly responding ; and though an 
act of the Legislature had been passed involving a penalty on refusal, many of 
the planters preferred paying it to allowing their negroes to be so employed. 
28 



434: THE LOST CAUSE. 

13ut to tlie desultory operations on Fort Wagner a remarkable episode 
was to take j)laee. Gen. Gillmore flattered liimself that he had discovered 
the precise point where to establish a battery from which he would be able 
to batter down the forts in the harbour and even the city of Charleston. 
It was said that he had at his disposal pieces whose range and effects sur- 
passed all conception ; and Northern newspapers were filled with the story 
of a new discovery called " the Greek Fire," which was to be poured 
upon Charleston, and consume " the cradle of secession." The prospect of 
what such devilish agents of destruction might accomplish was pleasing to 
many of the Northern people ; it was annouucedthatGillmore was experi- 
menting in liquid fire, that he had made a new style of bombs, and many 
other pyrotechnic inventions, and that he might soon be expected to " roll 
his fire-shells through the streets of Charleston." 

The point whence such work was to be accomplished, and where Gill- 
more thought to discover the vitals of Charleston, was nearly midway be- 
tween Morris and James Islands, seven thousand yards distant from the 
lower end of Charleston city. Here, on the marsh-mud — where a crab 
might crawl, but where a man would sink in a few minutes to the depth 
of twenty-five feet — there was prepared a plan of a battery for one 8-inch 
Parrott rifle (300-pounder). It was a siugular achievement of labour and 
skill. The work had to be done under cover of darkness, and it was neces- 
sary to hide the pieces of wood during the day with grass and sea- weed. 
In the night-time piles were driven in the mud-shoa. which separated the 
two islands ; fifteen thousand bags of sand, about one hundred and ten 
pounds each, were brought in the vessels to make a terre-plein and a para- 
pet. The work was executed in fourteen nights, from the 2d till the 18tli 
of Aagust. After breaking, by its great weight, several trucks, the mon- 
ster gun was finally hauled up, and placed in position, and Charleston, 
four miles and a half away, little dreamed that the " Sioamp Angel " * — 

* The following effusion of a Northern writer gives an explanation of this name, in which blas- 
phemy and devilish hate are united. The poetry reads like the exultation of a fiend. 

The " Swamp Angel" hears the traitor boasting of security, and sends forth its dreadful warn- 
mg that " nowhere in these United States are traitors safe from the avenging wrath of the R* 
public." 

" Flaunting, and boasting, and brisk, and gay, 
The streets of the city ^ine to-day. 
Forts without, our army within. 
To think of surrender were deadly sin ; 
For the foe far over the wave abide, 
And no guns can reach o'er the flowing tide. 
They can't ? Through the air, with a rush and a yell, 
Come the screech and the roar of the howling shell ; 
And the populous city is still alive 
With the bees that are leaving the ancient hive ; 
And the market-places are waste and bare. 
And the smoke hangs thick in the poisoned air ; 
And the ruins alone shall remain to tell 
Where the hynm of destruction was sung by the Bheli." 



GILLMOKE's attempt to fire CnARLESTOiSr. 435 

as this new agent of destruction was called — was looking into her 
streets. 

On the 21st August, Gen. Gillmore addressed to Gen. Beauregard a 
demand for the evacuation of Morris Island and Fort Sumter, and threat- 
ening, if not complied with, "in less than four hours, a fire would be 
opened on the city of Charleston, from batteries already established within 
easy and effective reach of the heart of the city." 

The reply of Gen. Beauregard was memorable. lie wrote, in a letter ad 
dressed to Gillmore : " It would appear, sir, that despairing of reducing these 
works, you now resort to the novel means of turning your guns against the 
old men, the women and children, and the hospitals of a sleeping city ; an 
act of inexcusable barbarity, from your own confessed point of view, inas- 
much as you allege that the complete demolition of Fort Sumter within a 
few hours by your guns seems to you a matter of certainty ; and your 
omission to attach your signature to such a grave paper, must show the 
recklessness of the course upon which you have adventured, while the fact 
that you knowingly fixed a limit for receiving an answer to your demand, 
which made it almost beyond the possibility of receiving any reply within 
that time, and that you actually did open fire and threw a number of the 
most destructive missiles ever used in war into the midst of a city taken 
unawares, and filled with sleeping women and children, will give you a 
bad eminence in history — even in the history of this war." 

If the enemy's execution had equalled his desire, there is no doubt that 
the city of Charleston would have been reduced to ruins and ashes ; women 
and children murdered indiscriminately ; and an outrage committed that 
would have shocked, the sensibilities of the WQrld. But happily Gen. Gill- 
more was not able to do what he threatened, ^and what that cowardly hate 
in the North, whose invocation against the South was, " Kill all the inliab- 
itants," waited for him to accomplish. The attempted bombardment of 
Charleston was a failure. Some few missiles from the Federal batteries 
on Morris Island reached the city. Twelve 8-incli shells fell in the streets ; 
several flew in the direction of St. Michaers steeple ; but fortunately no 
one was injured. The " Swamp Angel" fired only a few shots. At the 
thirty-sixth discharge the piece burst, blowing out the entire breech in 
rear of the vent. No guns were placed in the Marsh Battery after this ; 
the " Greek Fire " proved a humbug ; and firing upon the city was not 
resumed until after all of Morris Island came into the enemy's possession. 

The formidable strength of Fort Wagner, as developed in the unsuccess- 
ful assault of the 18th July, induced Gen. Gillmore to modify his plan of 
operations, and while pressing the siege of Fort Wagner by regular ap- 
proaches, to turn his fire over the heads of both this work and Fort Gregg 
upon the walls of Sumter. It was thus determined to attempt the demoli- 
tion of Fort Sumter from ground already in the enemy's possession, so that 



436 THE LOST CAUSE. 

the iron-clad fleet could, with as little delay as possible, enter upon the ex 
edition of their part of the joint programme. The early elimination of thia 
famous fort from the conflict, considered simply as auxiliary to the reduc- 
tion of Fort Wagner, was greatly to he desired, and elaborate arrangemer. ts 
were at once commenced to place the breaching guns in position. 

On the ISth August, Gillmore opened heavily against the east face c( 
Fort Sumter from his land batteries enfilading it. The cannonade waa 
continued throughout the day, nine hundred and forty-three shots being 
fired. The efiect was to batter the eastern face heavily, doing consider- 
able damage, and to disable one ten-inch gun and a rifled forty-two 
pounder. On the 22d the enemy threw six hundred and four shots at the 
fort, disabling some of the barbette guns, demolishing the arches of the 
northwest face, and scaling the eastern face severely. The next day the 
fire from the enemy's land batteries was kept up on Sumter, disabling the 
only ten-inch columbiad that remained, and the three rifled forty-two- 
pounders in the northern salient of the second tier. The eastern face Avas 
badly scaled, and the parapet seriously injured. 

On the 24th August Gen. Gillmore reported to Washington " the prac- 
tical demolition of Fort Sumter as the result of our seven days' bombard- 
ment of that work." The assertion was insolent and absurd. Fort Snm- 
ter had, indeed, been severely injured ; but it was in one respect stronger 
than ever ; for the battering down of the upper walls had rendered the 
casemated base impregnable, and the immense volume of stone and debris 
which protected it, was not at all afiected by the enemy's artillery. Al- 
though apparently a heap of ruins, it still afl:brded shelter to the Confed- 
erate heroes, who raised the standard of the South each time it was beaten 
down ; and it was still protected by the batteries of Fort Wagner, which 
the Federals had vainly endeavoured to carry by assault. Gen. Gillmore 
must, at all hazard, overcome this obstacle. He opened the trenches by 
means of the rolling sap, making work enough for a company of miners. 
Five parallels Avere established in succession, and two batteries were con- 
structed, with handages, under fire of James and Sullivan's Islands. From 
this moment Fort Wagner received more fire than she could return ; solid 
shot and shells fell right and left ; no living soul could remain upon the 
parapets ; everything was shattered in pieces ; the arches of the casemates 
commenced to crumble in, and to crush the defenders who had sought 
refuge there. 

For two days and nights the fort had been subjected to the most terrific 
fire that any earthwork had undergone in all the annals of warfare. All 
the light mortars of the enemy were moved to the front, and placed in bat- 
tery ; the rifled guns were trained upon the fort ; and powerful calcium 
lights aided the night work of the cannoniers and sharpshooters and 
blinded the Confederates. It was a S3ene of surpassing grandeur. Tlie 



FEDERAL OCCUPATION OF aiORKIS ISLAND. 437 

calcium lights turned night into day, and brought the minutest details of 
the fort into sharp relief. For forty-two consecutive hours, seventeen 
siege and coehorn mortars unceasingly dropped their shells into the work^ 
while thirteen heavy Parrott rifles — 100, 200, and 300-pounders — pounded 
away at short though regular intervals. Peal on peal of artillery rolled 
over the waters ; a semi-circle of the horizon was lit up ; an autumnal 
moon hung in the misty sky ; and ear and eye were alike appealed to 
with emotions of sublimity and grandeur. The shock of the rapid dis- 
charges trembled through the city, calling hundreds of citizens to the bat- 
tery, wharves, steeples, and various look-outs, where, with an interest never 
felt before, they gazed on a contest that might decide the fate of Charles- 
ton itself. 

On the night of the 6tli September, Gen. Gillmore ordered an assault 
on Fort Wagner at the hour of low tide on the following morning. The 
assault was to be made in three columns. About midnight a deserter re- 
ported to him that the Confederates were evacuating the island. The work 
of evacuation had commenced at nine o'clock that night, and was already 
concluded. All the garrison had got oif upon the Chicora, an iron-clad 
gunboat of the Confederates, and fourteen barges. Fort Gregg had been 
equally abandoned. Morris Island was thus the prize of the enemy, who 
now possessed themselves of Cuiiiming's Point, from which they could 
plainly see Charleston at a distance of four miles. 

The Northern public at once jumped to the conclusion that Gillmore 
had the key of Charleston, and had at last oj^ened the gate to the Monitors 
and iron-clads, which, at leisure, might ascend the harbour. Gillmore him- 
self insisted that he had done his part of the work ; that " Fort Sumter 
was a shapeless and harmless mass of ruins ; " and he indicated that it 
only remained for Admiral Dahlgren, with his fleet, to enter upon the 
scene, and accomplish the reduction of Charleston. But from this view 
the Federal admiral dissented ; he indicated that Gen. Beauregard had 
accomplished a new object by his long retention of Morris Island ; that, in 
fact, he had replaced Sumter by an interiour position, had obtained time 
to convert Fort Johnson from a forlorn old fort into a powerful earthwork, 
and had given another illustration of that new system of defence practised 
at Comorn and Sebastapol, where, instead of being any one key to a plan 
of fortification, there was the necessity of a siege for every battery, in 
which the besiegers were always exposed to the fire of others. lie was 
unwilling, too, to risk the destructive defences and infernal machines with 
which the passes were blockaded. The Confederates had given out that 
by no possibility could one of the gunboats escape these, and Dahlgren's 
equadron of iron-clads and IMonitors did not dare venture far up the har- 
bour past Fort Ripley and within range of the immediate defences of the city. 

Gillmore claimed that he had reduced Fort Sumter; but the Confed- 



438 THE LOST CAUSE. 

erate flag still floated over it. It had been held through the siege and can 
nonadeby the First South Carolina Artillery, under Col, Alfred Ehett, until 
its armament had been disabled ; and the services of the artillerymen being 
elsewhere required, Gen. Beauregard determined that it sliould be held by 
infantry. On the night of the 4th September, the Charleston Battalion, 
under Maj, Blake, relieved the garrison ; Maj, Stephen Elliot relieving 
Col. Rhett in command of the post. On the 7th of September, Admiral 
Dahlgren, determined to test Gillmore's assertion that Sumter was a 
" harmless mass of ruins," summoned the fort to surrender. Gen. Beaure- 
gard telegraphed to Maj. Elliot to reply to Dahlgren that he could have 
Fort Sumter when he took it and held it, and that in the mean time such 
demands were puerile and unbecoming. 

In the evening of the Tth September, the iron-clads and Monitors ap- 
proached Fort Sumter closer than usual, and opened a hot fire against it. 
In the night of the 9th September thirty of the launches of the enemy at- 
tacked Fort Sumter. Preparations had been made for the event. At a 
concerted signal, all the batteries bearing on Sumter assisted by one gunboat 
and a ram, were thrown open. The enemy was repulsed, leaving in our 
hands one hundred and thirteen prisoners, including thirteen officers. 
There were also taken four boats and three colours, and the original flag 
of Fort Sumter, which Maj. Anderson -was compelled to lower in 18G1, 
and which Dahlgren had hoped to replace. 

After this repulse of the Federals in their last attack upon Fort Sum- 
ter, but little more was done during the year by the enemy, except 
bombarding the forts and shelling Charleston at intervals during day and 
night, until this became so customary that it no longer excited dismay or 
was an occasion of alarm to even women and children. The city was in- 
tact and safe ; Gillmore had expended many thousand lives and thrown 
shell enough to build several iron-clads to obtain a position that proved 
worthless ; Admiral Dahlgren feared the destruction of a fleet which had 
cost so much sacrifice, and refused to ascend the harbour ; and the demon- 
stration upon Charleston degenerated into the desultory record of a fruit- 
less bombardment. The Northern public appeared to sicken of the experi- 
ment of Farrott guns and monster artillery, and read with disgust the daily 
bulletins of how many hundred useless shots had been fired, and of how 
much ammunition had been grandly expended in a great noise to little pur- 
]>ose. " How many times," asked an indignant Philadelphia paper, " has 
Fort Sumter been taken ? How many times has Charleston been burned ? 
How often have the people been on the eve of starvation and surrender ? 
How many times has the famous Greek Fire poured the rain of Sodom 
and the flames of hell upon the secession city ? We cannot keep the count 
— but those can w^ho rang the bells and put out the flags, and invoked tho 
imprecations, and rejoiced at the story of conflagration and ruin." 



CIIAPTEK XXVII. 

eiK. JOSEPH E. JOnXSTON's PEOPnECT OF THE FATE OF TENNESSEE. — CHARACTER AND EXTBA- 

Or.DINARY FORESIGHT OF THIS COMMANDER. ROW TENNESSEE WAS SACRIFICED TO THE 

ATTEMPTED DEFENCE OF VICKSBIIRG. BEAGg's ARMY FLANKED AT HOOVEr's GAP. IT 

COMMENCES A RETREAT TO CnATTANOOGA. EXPEDITION OF JOnN MORGAN. HOW IT AF- 
FECTED THE "WESTERN CAMPAIGN AND EMBARRASSED BURNSIDE. MORGAN'S CIRCUIT 

THROUGH KENTUCKY, INDIANA, AND OHIO. WHAT HE ACCOMPLISHED. HIS ANXIETY FOB 

EETREAT. — CUT OFF ON THE OHIO RIVER. — TERRIBLE SCENES IN THE ATTEMPT TO SWIM 
THE BIVER. — CAPTURE OF MORGAN AND THE BULK OF HIS COMMAND. — CRUEL AND INFA- 
MOUS TREATMENT OF THE DISTINGUISHED CAPTIVE AND HIS OFFICERS, SUEBENDEE OP 

CUMBERLAND GAP. PRESIDENT DAVIs' COMMENTARY ON THIS EVENT, — RECOIL OF SERIOUS 

CHARGES UPON THE RICHMOND ADMINISTRATION. BUENSIDe's INVASION OF EAST TENNES- 
SEE. GEN. FRAZIEE IN COMMAND AT CUMBERLAND GAP. — HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITU 

GEN. BUCKNER. — THE DEFENCES OF THE GAP IMPERFECT. — INSUFFICIENCY OF THE GARRI- 
SON. WHY GEN. FRAZIEE SURRENDERED IT. — TWO LINES OF OPERATIONS NOW OPENED 

AGAINST CHATTANOOGA. — THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. — TOPOGRAPHY OF THE COUN- 
TRY ABOUND CHATTANOOGA. — MOVEMENTS OF EOSECEANS. — HE THREATENS A FLANK 
MOVEMENT TOWARDS EOME. — THE CONFEDEBATES EVACUATE CHATTANOOGA. — BBAGG's 
NEW LINE FROM LEe's AND GOEDOn's MILLS TO LAFAYETTE. — LONGSTEEET's CORPS ON THE 
WAY FROM VIRGINIA TO EEINFOECE HIM. — EOSECEANS PURSUES THE CONFEDERATES, AND 
EXPOSES HIMSELF IN DETAIL. — THE LOST OPPORTUNITY IN m'lEMOEE's COVE. — LINES OF 
EOSECRANS' ADVANCE, — BRAGG RESOLVES TO ADVANCE AND ATTACK HIM. — ARRIVAL OF 

LONGSTEEET WITH FIVE BRIGADES. THE ENEMY ANTICIPATES A FLANK MOVEMENT BY 

BRAGG, — A SEVEBE ENCOUNTEB, — CLEBUENE's GALLANT CHAEGE.— THE CONFEDERATE PLAN 

OF BATTLE FOE THE NEXT DAY. — GEN POLK TO OPEN THE ACTION. A STRANGE DELAY. 

A SINGULAR BEEAKFAST SCENE. — GEN. BEAGG FUEIOUS. — THE CONFEDEEATE EIGHT AVING 

BEATEN BACK. CRITICAL CONDITION OF THE FIELD. LONGSTREEt's ATTACK, — HE SAVES 

THE DAY. — THE ENEMY UTTEELY EOUTED. — CHICKAMAUGA A BEILLIANT BUT UNPEO- 
DCCTIVE VICTORY. 

There was no Confederate commander so remarlvable for long foresight 
and for tlie most exact fulfilment of prophetic words as Gen. Joseph E. 
Johnston. He was more profound than Lee ; his mind, could range over 
larger fields ; at al] times of the war liis cool, sedate judgments were so in 
opposition to the intoxicated senses of the Confederate people, that he was 



4:40 THE LOST CAUSE. 

rather unpopular tlian otherwise, and rested his reputation on the apprecia- 
tive and intelligent, who steadily marked him as the military genius of the 
Confederacy. It remained for the sequel to justify the reputation of this 
greatest military man in the Confederacy, who, cooler even than Lee him- 
self, without ardour, made up almost exclusively of intellect, saw more 
clearly than any other single person each approaching shadow of the war, 
and prophesied, with calm courage, against the madness of the Administra- 
tion at Richmond and the extravagant vanity of the people. 

"When the Yickshurg campaign was decided upon at Kichmond, Gen. 
Johnston then warned the authorities there that they should make choice 
between Mississippi and Tennessee ; and in urging the retention of the 
latter State, he declared, with singular felicity of expression, that it was 
" the shield of the South." In six weeks after the battle of Murfreesboro, 
our army in Tennessee was as strong as when it fought that battle, and, 
with ordinary generalship, might have driven Eosecrans from the State. 
But when Stevenson's division was sent to the lines of the Mississippi, 
Johnston saw the errour ; he sent to Richmond a protest against it, which 
he thought of such historical importance as to duplicate and to copy care- 
fully among his private memoranda ; and he then predicted that the Rich- 
mond Administration, in trying to hold the Mississippi River and Ten- 
nessee, would lose both, and that the enemy, once pressing the northern 
frontier of Georgia, would obtain a position that would eventually prove 
the critical one of the war. 

With his forces reduced for the defence of Yicksburg, Gen. Bragg in- 
sisted upon regarding his army in Tennessee as one merely of observation. 
Rosecrans was in his front, and Burnside, who commanded what was 
called the Army of the Cumberland, was in a position, by an advance to- 
wards Knoxville, to threaten his rear. In July, Gen. Bragg occupied a 
ridge extending from Bellbuckle towards Bradyville, very strong by na- 
ture on the right and made strong by fortifications on the left, in front of 
Shelbyville. An injudicious disposition of forces left Hoover's Gap unde- 
fended by our army. Rosecrans advanced upon Hoover's Gap. Three 
brigades of Confederates moved rapidly up, and held them in the Gap over 
forty hours. This position gained placed Rosecrans on Bragg's flank, 
who, to save his army, commenced a retreat, which was eventually con- 
tinued to Chattanooga. 



EXPEDITION OF JOHN MOKGAN". 

As part of the general plan of action in the West, and an important 
contribution to the success of Gen. Bragg's retreat, we must notice here a 
remarkable expedition of the famous cavalier, Gen. John Morgan, tho 



EXPEDITION OF JOHN MORGAN. 441 

effect of which, although its immediate event was disaster, was to create 
an important diversion of Buraside's army, large detachments of which 
were drawn after Morgan into and through Kentucky, and to prevent that 
Federal commander from getting in rear of Bragg's army at the time it 
was menaced in front by Rosccrans, at Shelbyville. 

In the latter part of the month of June the command of Gen. Morgan, 
consisting of detachments from two brigades, and numbering nearly three 
thousand men, approached the banks of the Cumberland. The jiassage 
of the river was weakly contested by three Ohio regiments, which had ad- 
vanced from Somerset, Kentucky. Gen. Morgan was obliged to build a 
number of boats, and commenced crossing the river on the 1st July. By 
ten o'clock next morning his whole regiment was over the river ; the ad- 
vance proceeding to Columbia, where, after a brief engagement, the enemy 
was driven through the town. 

Passing through Columbia, Gen. Morgan proceeded towards Green River 
Bridge, and attacked the enemy's stockade there with two regiments, send- 
ing the remainder of his force across at another ford. The jilace was judi- 
ciously chosen and skilfully defended ; and the result was that the Confed- 
erates were repulsed with severe loss — about twenty-five killed and twenty 
wounded. 

At sunrise on the 4th July, Gen. Morgan moved on Lebanon. The 
Federal commander here — Col. Hanson — made a desperate resistance ; 
placing his forces in the depot and in various houses, and only surrender- 
ing after the Confederates had fired the buildings in which he was posted. 
About six hundred prisoners were taken here, and a sufiicient quantity of 
guns to arm all of Morgan's men who were without them. 

Rapid marches brought Morgan to Bradensburg on the 7th July ; and 
the next day he crossed the Ohio, keeping in check two gunboats, and dis- 
persing a force of militia posted with artillery on the Indiana shore. When 
the pursuing column of the enemy, which had increased now to seven 
regiments and two pieces of artillery, reached the banks of the river, it 
was to find the passenger boat on which Gen. Morgan had effected a cross- 
ing in flames, and to see far back on the opposite shore the rear-guard of 
his force rapidly disappearing in the distance. 

On the 9th July Morgan marched on to Corydon, fighting near four 
thousand State militia, capturing three-fourths of them, and dispersing the 
remainder. lie then moved without a halt through Salisbury and Palmyra 
to Salem, where he destroyed the railroad bridge and track and a vast 
amount of public stores. Then taking the road to Lexington, after riding 
all night, he reached that point at daylight, capturing a number of sup- 
plies, and destroying during the night the depot and track at Yienna, on 
the Jeffersonville and Indianapolis Railroad. Leaving Lexington, he 
passed on north to the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad near Yernon, where, 



442 THE LOST CAUSE, 

fiDding Gen. Manson with a lieavy force of infantry, he skirmished with 
him two hours as a feint, while the main command moved round the town 
to Dupont, where squads were sent out to cut the roads between Vernon 
and Seymour on the west, Vernon and Lawrenceburg on the east, Vernon 
and Madison on the south, and Vernon and Columbus on the north. 

From Vernon Gen. Morgan proceeded to Versailles, capturing five 
hundred militia there and gathering on the road. IVom Versailles he 
moved without interruption across to Harrison, Ohio, destroying the track 
and burning small bridges on the Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis Rail- 
road. At Harrison he burned a fine bridge. Leaving Harrison at dusk, 
he moved around Cincinnati, passing between that city and Hamilton, de- 
stroying the railroad, and a scout running the Federal pickets into the city, 
the whole command marched within seven miles of it. Daylight of the 
14th found him eighteen miles east of Cincinnati. 

The adventurous commander had now performed a Avonderful circuit ; 
he had traversed two enormous States, destroying property, probably to 
the extent of ten millions of dollars ; he had cut an entire net of railroads ; 
he had paroled nearly six thousand prisoners, and thrown several millions 
of people into frantic consternation. He had done his work, and the 
anxiety now was to escape. It was no easy matter. The country had 
been aroused, and it was reported that twenty-five thousand men were un- 
dei- arms to pursue or to intercept " the bloody invader." 

After passing Cincinnati, the jaded command of Confederates proceeded 
towards Dennison, and making a feint there, struck out for the Ohio. 
Daily were they delayed by the annoying cry of " Axes to the front," a 
cry that warned them of busliwackers, ambuscades, and blockaded roads. 
It appeared that every hillside contained an enemy and every ravine s 
blockade. It was not until the evening of the 19th July, that the com- 
mand, dispirited and worn down, reached the river at a ford above 
Pomroy. 

At 4 p. M., two companies were thrown across the river, and were in- 
stantly opened upon by the enemy. A scout of three htmdred men were 
sent down the river a half mile, who reported back that they had found a 
small force behind rifle-pits, and asked permission to charge. The rifle- 
pits were charged, and one hundred and fifty prisoners captured. A 
courier, arriving about the same time, reported that a gunboat had ap- 
proached near our battery, and upon being fired upon had retired pre- 
cipitatel}'. 

Gen. Morgan finding this report correct, and believing that he had 
sufficient time to cross the command, was using every exertion to accom- 
plish the task, when sinmltaneously could be heard the discharge of artil- 
lery from down the river — a heavy, drumming sound of small arms in the 
rear and right ; and soon from the banks of the river, came up three black 



CAPTUKE OF JOHN MOKGAK. 443 

eolamns of infantry, firing upon our men, who were in close column, prepar- 
ing to cross. Seeing tliat tlie enemy liad every advantage of position, an 
overwhelming force of infantry and cavalry, and that his men wei'c becom- 
ing completely environed, the command- was ordered by Gen. Morgan to 
move up tlie river double-quick. Three companies of dismounted men, and 
perhaps two hundred sick and wounded were left in the enemy's povsses- 
Bion. The bulk of the command pressed rapidly to Belleville, about foui'^ 
teen miles, on a running fight, and commenced fording, or rather swim- 
ing, at that point. Three hundred and thirty men had eflfccted a crossing, 
when again the enemy's gunboats were upon them — one iron-clad and two 
transports. It was a terrible adventure now to cross the river ; but even 
under the hot fire a party of officers, headed by Col. Adam li. Johnson, 
plunged into the stream, and commenced the struggle of life and death. 
Of the fearful scene which ensued, one of the party writes : " Tlie Colonel's 
noble mare falters, strikes out again, and boldly makes the shore. Wood- 
son follows. My poor mare, being too weak to carry me, turned over, and 
commenced going down ; encumbered by clothing, sabre, and pistols, I 
made but poor progress in the turbid stream. An inherent love of life 
actuated me to continue swimming. Behind me I heard the piercing call 
of young Rogers for help ; on my right, Capt. Helm was appealing to me 
for aid ; and in the rear my friend, Capt. McClain, was sinking. Grad- 
ually the gunboat was nearing me. Should I be able to hold up until it 
came ; and would I then be saved to again undergo the horrours of a 
Federal bastile ? But I hear something behind me snorting ! I feel it 
passing ! Thank God ! I am saved ! A riderless horse dashes by ; 
I grasp his tail ; onward he bears me, and the shore is reached. Col. 
Johnson, on reaching the shore, seizes a ten-inch piece of board, jumps into 
a leaky skiflf, and starts back to aid the drowning. He reaches Capt. 
Helm, but Capt. McClain and young liogers are gone." 

Gen. Morgan was not of the fortunate party that escaped across the 
river. "With two hundred of his men he broke through the enemy's lines 
on the north side of the Ohio, and continued his flight in the direction of 
ISTew Lisbon, with the design of reaching the river higher up. Forces were 
despatched to head him ofi", and the brave cavalier, who had so often given 
occasion of surprise and mystery to the enemy, was, at last, brought to bay 
at a point on the river where there was no escape, except by fighting his 
way through, or leaping from a lofty and almost pei"peudicular precipice. 
Here he surrendered himself and the remnant of his command. 

Of the infamous treatment of this distinguished captive and his com- 
rades, the following memorandum was made in the War Department at 
Richmond, signed by Lieut.-Col. Alston, as a personal witness : " They 
were carried to Cincinnati, and from thence he [Gen. Morgan] and twenty- 
eight of his ofticers were selected and carried to Columbus, Ohio, where 



444 THE LOST CATTSE. 

they were shaved and their hair cut very close by a negro convict. They 
were then marched to the bath room, and scrubbed, and from there to their 
cells where they were locked up. The Federal papers published, with 
great delight, a minute account of the whole proceedings. Seven days 
afterwards, forty-two more of Gen. Morgan's officers were conveyed from 
Johnson's Island to tJie ijeniU^itlary ^ and subjected to the same in- 
dignities." 

But these hardships and outrages did not break the spirit of these brave 
men. The very officer who made the memorandum quoted above, dared 
to write in his jail-journal this sentiment of defiance : " There are a hun- 
dred thousand men in the South who feel as I do, that they would rather 
an earthquake should swallow the whole country then yield to our oppres- 
sors — men who will retire to the mountains and live on acorns, and crawl 
Dn their bellies to shoot an invader wherever they can see one." 



SUKEENDER OF CUMBERLAND GAP. 

In the month of September occurred the surrender of Cumberland Gap 
— a misfortune which President Davis declared " laid open Eastern Tennes- 
see and Southwestern Yirginia to hostile operations, and broke the line of 
communication between the seat of Government and Middle Tennessee " 
— and an event which some of the Richmond papers characterized as " one 
of the most disgraceful of the war." These serious charges demand a 
close investigation of the subject ; and it will be seen that Cumberland 
Gap is but another instance in which such charges, on a detail of facts, re- 
coil upon the Eichmond Administration itself. 

About the last of August, 1863, the Federal forces under Gen. Burn- 
side, entered Tennessee, and occupied Knoxville on the 2d September. A 
large part of these forces passed through the Cumberland Mountains from 
Kentucky into Tennessee at Big Creek Gap, forty miles south of Cumber- 
land Gap, which latter position was held by Gen. Frazier for the Confed- 
erates. On the 21st August, Gen. Buckner, who was in command of the 
Confederate forces in East Tennessee, ordered Gen. Frazier to hold " the 
Gap," which was an important protection to that country and to South- 
western Yirginia ; stating, moreover, that if the enemy broke through be- 
tween this post and Big Creek Gap — the left and rear of Gen. Frazier — he 
(Buckner)would check them. Tliis despatch left Gen. Frazier under the 
impression that he would be protected in his rear. But on the 30th 
August Gen. Buckner again despatched to Frazier to evacuate the Gap 
with all speed, to burn and destroy everything that could not be trans- 
ported, and to report to Gen. S. Jones at Abingdon, Yirginia, one hundred 
and twenty-five miles distant. 



DEFENCES OF CUMBEKLAND GAP. 445 

Gen. Frazier was not satisfied of the genuineness of tliis order ; lie sus- 
pected some trick of the enemj ; he had been left under the recent and 
emphatic impression that East Tennessee was to be held ; and he tele- 
graphed in cipher to Gen. Buckner, stating that he had about forty days' 
rations, that he believed he could hold the position, and asking to be in- 
formed if his superiour insisted upon the order of evacuation. The order 
was countermanded within twenty-four hours, and Buckner's last instruc- 
tions were to hold the Gap. 

Knoxville had at this time been abandoned ; and Gen. Buckner and 
his forces were at Loudon, about thirty miles southwest of Knoxville, at 
the crossing of the Ilolstein or Tennessee River. Gen. Frazier prepared 
for a vigorous defence of the Gap. It was not the " easily defensible 
pass " which President Davis declared it to be. There were three public 
roads uniting in it : the Virginia Road, leading eastward to Powell's Val- 
ley ; the Kentucky Road, running through the Gap from Knoxville into 
Kentucky ; and the Harlan Road, leading along the north side of the 
mountain. In consequence of the broken nature of the country, declivities, 
ravines, etc., the artillery commanded these roads very imperfectly. The 
Kentucky Road to the south at various points in its windings could be 
reached within range of the guns ; but neither of the other roads could be 
commanded with artillery for a greater distance than about four hundred 
yards. Batteries were placed to defend these approaches. But the char- 
acter of the ground permitted an enemy to approach in many directions 
over the spaces between the roads. Tlie line of proper outward defences 
for the force in Gen. Frazier's command was about two miles in circuit, 
which comprised the various rifle-pits placed at irregular intervals, as the 
surface indicated proper points for their location on or near the summit of 
the mountain. An unfinished block -house in an isolated position, about a 
mile and a half from the Gap, was defended by one gun. This position 
had a limited command of the space around it, owing to the steep declivity 
and broken ground ; but as it commanded the works of the Gap, it was 
important to prevent its occupation by the enemy. The rifle-pits and ar- 
tillery epaulements were very incomplete, owing to the rocky nature of the 
ground, the want of tools, and blasting powder, and the small force of 
workmen that could be S2")ared from other necessary duties. There were 
several approaches to the Gap by ravines and depressions thi'ough which 
an enemy could throw a large force under cover of darkness or heavy fog. 
The chief defences had been prepared to meet a force on the north side ; 
and these were the reliance of Gen. Frazier when he expressed the opinion 
that he would be able to hold the position, as he anticipated an attack oidy 
from that direction. 

Ten thousand men should have been assigned for the permanent de- 
fence of this position. The tact was that the force at Gen. Frazier's com- 



446 THE LOST CAUSE. 

mand amounted to seventeen hundred men, with one hundred rounds of 
ammunition. Of the situation, Gen. Frazier writes : ^^ I will express the 
opinion arrived at, after a full knowledge of all the conditions, gained dur- 
ing a month, that an assaulting force, equal to the garrison could carry it 
as easily as the ojpen field, if guided, or informed of its weak points, by 
disaffected persons in the vicinity — especially during the prevalence of 
fogs, which greatly demoralized tlie men, who were unaccustomed to ser- 
vice and had never been in action." 

On the 4th September, Gen, Frazier was informed that the enemy was 
in possession of Knoxville, and had started a heavy force towards the Gap, 
and was running the cars to Morristown, within forty miles of his post. 
He was also informed that a large force, said to be sixteen regiments and 
two trains of artillery, were at Barboiirsville, Kentucky, en route for the 
Gap. JSTot believing that so large a force of the enemy would be sent 
against him from Knoxville until after successful engagement with Gen. 
Buckner, Gen. Frazier sent a cavalry regiment to meet the force said to 
be advancing from Knoxville, engage it, and uncover its strength. This 
force of cavalry, six hundred strong, was cut off, and compelled to retreat 
to Jonesville, thirty-six miles distant. 

On the Ttli September, Gen. Shackleford, who had approached the Gap 
from the south side, demanded its surrender. On the following day, Col. 
De Coney, who had come up with a brigade on the Kejitucky side, made 
the same demand on his part. 

During the afternoon of the 8th September, Gen, Frazier assembled his 
regimental commanders, and had an informal conference with them. 
Tliere was no council of war, and no votes were taken. There was a divi- 
sion of opinion as to the course to be pursued, but the officers separated on 
the final understanding to make a determined defence and with the expec- 
tation that Gen, Buckner would soon relieve the garrison. 

On the 9th September reinforcements joined the enemy on the Tennes- 
see side, and Gen. Frazier received a summons to surrender from Gen. 
Burnside himself. He had also received information about this time that 
the Confederate forces at Loudon Bridge had burned the bridge, and that 
Buckner had retreated towards Chattanooga. Gen. Burnside's presence 
at the Gap, so unexpected, was deemed by the garrison sufficient proof 
that he had nothing to fear from the Confederate forces further south, and 
that all hope of succour from Gen. Buckner was at an end. In the after- 
noon of the preceding day. Gen. Frazier had received a despatch from 
Gen. S. Jones, commanding at Abingdon, Yirginia, to the effect that ho 
should not give up the Gap without a stubborn resistance, and that he 
would send a force which he thought strong enough to relieve the garrison. 

Of what ensued on the reception of this despatch, Gen. Frazier gives 
the following explanation : " I asked the courier if any troops had arrived 



I 



BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 447 

at Abingdon, or if it was known there that Gen. Biickner had burned Lou- 
don Bridge and retreated south, and also if they knew that Gen. Burnside 
had moved north with a large force. He replied, that there were no 
troops in Abingdon, but some were expected, and that they were ignorant 
of recent operations in Eastern Tennessee. I thus perceived that Gen. 
Jones was ignorant of my situation, and. of the enemy's late movements, 
and knowing that the entire force under Gen. Jones could not cope suc- 
cessfully with Gen, Burnside, and that Gen. Lee could not reinforce him 
to any extent, as Gen. Meade was reported as pressing him, in East Vir- 
ginia, I concluded, if Gen. Jones should attempt to relieve me, that the 
relieving force would be destroyed, and the occupation of the Virginia salt 
works follow, of course. The despatch of Gen. Jones referred to I de- 
stroyed, fearing it might fall into the hands of the enemy, show the weak- 
ness of Gen. Jones, and lead to an attack upon him to destroy these salt 
works, I thus perceived that my command could effect nothing by a tem- 
porary resistance, and that even could I hope to cut my way out, and at- 
tempt an escape up the valley, I should be thwarted in the attempt Avith- 
out artillery or cavalry, as the enemy had a formidable force of these arms, 
and could cut me up, or capture my forces in detail. I also reflei^ted, that 
such a step, if partially successful, would draw the enemy towards j^bing- 
don, and probably result in extending their operations to that place ; when 
a surrender of the Gap would probably satisfy his desire for conquest at 
that time." 

About midday of the 9th September, Gen. Burnside sent in a second 
demand for surrender, stating that sufficient time for consultation had been 
allowed, and that he had a force large enough to carry the position by 
assault, and wished to spare the eft'usion of blood. After an attempt to 
maketerms, Gen. Frazier surrendered unconditionally. 

The occupation of Cumberland Gap gave Burnside an uninterrupted 
line of communication from Knoxville to Chattanooga, and opened the way 
to the consummation of the plan of the enemy, which was to move against 
Chattanooga on a double line of operations, and make there a new and 
formidable front directly against the heart of the Confederacy. 



THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 

Chattanooga is one of the great gate-ways through the mountains to 
the champaign country of Georgia and Alabama. It is situated at the 
mouth of the valley formed by Lookout Mountain and the Missionary 
Ridge. The first-named eminence is a vast palisade of rocks, rising 
twenty-four hundred feet above the level of the sea, in abrupt, rocky clifis, 
from a steep, wooded base. East of Missionary Ridge is another valley, 



448 THE LOST CAUSE. 

following the course of Chickamauga Creek, and having its head in 
McLemore's Cove. 

Immediately after crossing the mountains to the Tennessee E.iver, Eose- 
craus, who %vas moving with a force of effective infantry and artillery, 
amounting to fully seventy thousand men, threw a corps by way of Se- 
quatchie Yalley — a caiion or deep cut sp)Iitting the Cumberh\nd range 
parallel — hoping to strike the rear of Gen. Buckner's command, whilst 
Burnside occupied him in front. Buckner, however, was directed by 
Gen. Bragg to withdraw to the Hiawassee ; and the enemy then com- 
menced a movement against the Confederate left and rear, showing plainly 
that he intended a flank march towards Rome. 

To save the State of Georgia, Chattanooga had to be abandoned. Gen. 
Bragg, having now united with him the forces of Buckner, evacuated 
Chattanooga on the Yth September, and, after a severe march through the 
dust, which was ankle deep, took position from Lee and Gordon's Mill to 
Lafayette, on the road leading south from Chattanooga, and fronting the 
east slope of Lookout Mountain. 

Gen. Bragg's effective force, exclusive of cavalry, was a little over 
thirty-five thousand jnen. But in view of the great conflict that was to 
ensue, Gen. Longstreet's corps was on the way from Virginia to reinforce 
him, and with this prospect it was determined to meet the enemy in front, 
whenever he should emerge from the mountain gorges. During the 9th 
September, it was ascertained that Eosecrans, supposing that Bragg was 
retreating, had pressed on his columns to intercept him, thus exposing him- 
self in detail, and that a large force of Thomas' corps was moving up McLe- 
more's Cove. Cheatham's division was moved rapidly forward to Lafay- 
ette in front ; a portion of D. II. Hill's corps occupied Catlett's Gap in 
Pigeon Mountain (a spur of Lookout, about fifteen miles frora Clmtta- 
nooga), fianking the enemy on his right ; while Gen. Hindman, in conjunc- 
tion wath Hill, was ordered to attack the enemy immediately in the 
Cove. 

The attack was delayed ; a day was lost, and with it the opportunity 
of crushing a column of the enemy ; and wdien Hindman, with whom Gen. 
D. H. Hill had contumaciously refused to co-operate, and who had there- 
fore to await the junction of Buckner's command, was at last ready to 
move, Thomas had discovered his errour, retreated to the mountain passes, 
and thus rescued the Federal centre from the exposed position in McLe- 
more's Cove. 

To understand the advance of Rosecrans' army, it would seem that 
Thomas' and McCook's corps crossed the Tennessee at Bridgeport, march- 
ing over Sand Mountain into "Will's Yalley, and thence down McLemore's 
Cove in the direction of Lafayette. Crittenden's corps had crossed above 
Chattanooga at Harrison's, and was moved in the direction of Ringgold. 



BAITLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 449 

A portion of Parke's corps of Burnside's array, and a brigade of his cavalry, 
came down from Knoxville to Loudon and Cleveland. 

A council of war was held by Gen. Bragg at Lafayette, on the 15th, 
and it w^as resolved to advance towards Chattanooga, and attack the enemy 
wherever he could be found. By tlie 19th he had moved his army by 
divisions, and crossed it at several fords of the Chickainauga, and bridges 
north of Lee and Gordon's Mills. Longstreet had reached Ringgold in 
the afternoon of the same day. The reinforcements wliicli he l>rought 
were five brigades of his corps, about five thousand eiFective infantry and 
no artillery. It was contemplated by Gen. Bragg to make a flank move- 
ment, and turn the enemy's left, so as to get his forces between him and 
Chattanooga, and thus cut off his retreat, believing that the main force of 
the enemy was at Lee and Gordon's Mills, and upon which he had intend- 
ed to move. But he was anticipated ; and as he was preparing for the 
movement the enemy commenced a counter-attack, Thomas' corps making 
a desperate efibrt to turn the right wing of the Confederates. The attack 
was gallantly met by Walker's division, whose troops broke through two 
lines, and captured two batteries. But the enemy was largely reinforced 
here, and hurrying forward his multiplied numbers to recover his lost 
ground, when Cheatham, who had been in reserve, moved forward with 
his veterans, and met the shock of battle. It was a terrible, doubtful, and 
long encounter. Our lines wavered before the desperate struggle of the 
enemy, and for three hours the fight was kept up with varied success. 

It was near sunset when Cleburne — " the Stonewall Jackson of the 
West " — who commanded a division in Hill's coi-ps, passed to the front 
over the bloody ground that had been so stubbornly contested by Cheat- 
ham, charging the enemy up to the very breastworks. A crashing fire 
of musketry from the enemy made Cleburne's men reel, when forward 
dashed his batteries, and opened a terrific fire on the enemy's works, while 
the division charged with such impetuosity that the enemy recoiled, and 
were driven half a mile from their line of battle. 

That night the Confederate troops slept on the field surrounded by the 
deax3. ISTo cheerful fire dispelled the gloom, and profound silence brooded 
over the field of carnage. 

Tlie proper commanders were summoned by Gen. Bragg, and received 
specific information and instructions touching the disposition of the troops 
for the grand and decisive action of the next da}'. Tlie whole force was 
divided for the next morning into two commands, and assigned to the two 
senior Lieut.-Generals, Longstreet and Polk : the former on the left, 
where all his own troo])S were stationed, the latter continuing his command 
of the right. Lieut.-Gen. Longstreet reached Gen. Bragg's headquarters 
about 11 p. M., and immediately received his instructions. After a fe^^ 
hours' rest, he moved at daylight to his line just in front of Bragg's posi- 
29 



450 THE LOST CAUSE. 

tion. Lieut.-Gen. Polk was ordered to assail tlie enemy on tlie extreme 
right at daj-dawn on the 20th, and to take up the attack in succession 
rapidly to tlie left. The left wing was to await the attack by the right, 
take it up promptly when made, and the whole line was then to be 
pushed vigorously and persistently against the enemy throughout its extent. 

At dawn, Gen. Bragg was in the saddle, surrounded by his staff, eager- 
ly listening for the sound of Polk's guns. The sun rose, and was mounting 
the sky, and still there was no note of attack from the right wing. Pragg 
chafed with impatience, and at last despatched one of his staff-officers, 
Maj. Lee, to ascertain the cause of Polk's delay, and urge him to a prompt 
and speedy movement. Gen. Polk, notwithstanding his clerical antece- 
dents, was noted for his fondness of military osteatation, and carried a 
train of staff ofhcers whose numbers and superb dress were the occasions 
of singular remark. Maj. Lee found him seated at a comfortable break- 
fast, surrounded by brilliantly dressed officers, and delivered his message 
with military bluntnesjs and brevity. Gen. Polk replied that he had or- 
dered Hill to open the action, that he was waiting for him, and he added : 
" Do tell Gen. Bragg that my heart is overflowing with anxiety for the 
attack — overflowing with anxiety, sir." Maj. Lee returned to the com- 
manding-general, and reported the reply literally. Bragg uttered a terri- 
ble exclamation, in which Polk, Hill, and all his generals were included. 
" Maj. Lee," he cried, " ride along the line, and order every cajptoAn to take 
his men instantly into action." In fifteen minutes the battle was joined ; 
but three hours of valuable time had been lost, in which Rosecrans was 
desperately busy in strengthening his position. 

It was 10 o'clock when the battle opened on the right wing of the Con- 
federates, and the command " forward " ran down their ranks. Breckin- 
ridge moved forward with his division, but, after a severe contest, was 
pressed back. Had the reserve ordered forward to Breckinridge's support 
come up in time, the enemy's position might have been carried, and pre- 
vented the conflict of the afternoon. As it was, notwithstanding the par- 
tial repulse, several pieces of artillery were captured and a large number 
of prisoners. 

At the same time each succeeding division to the left gradually be- 
came engaged with the enemy, extending to Longstreet's wing. "Walker's 
division advanced to the relief of Breckinridge, and, after an engagement 
of half an hour, was also compelled to retire under the severe fire of 
the enemy. The gallant Tennesseans, under Cheatham, then advanced to 
the relief of Walker, but even they wavered and fell back under the ter- 
rible fire of the enemy. Cleburne's division, which had several times 
gallantly charged the enemy, had also been checked, and Stuart's division, 
occupying the centre and left of our line, detached from Buckner's corps, 
had recoiled before the enemy. 



BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 451 

About three o'clock in the afternoon, Gen. Longstreet asked Gen 
Bragg for some of the troops of the right wing, bnt was informed by him 
that tliey had been beaten back so badly that they could be of no service. 
Longstreet had but one division that had not been engaged, and hesitated 
to venture to put it in, as the distress upon the Confederate right seemed 
to be almost as great as that of the enemy upon his right. He therefore 
concluded to hold Preston's division for the time, and urge on to renewed 
eflbrts the brave men who had already been engaged many honrs. The 
enemy had obtained some heights near the Crawfish Spring Eoad, and 
strong ground upon which to rally. Here he gathered most of his broken 
forces, and reinforced them. After a long and bloody struggle, Johnson 
and Hindman gained the heights. Kershaw made a handsome attack upon 
the heights, simultaneously with Johnson and Hindman, but was not 
strong enough for the work. It was evident that with this position gained 
Longstreet .would be complete master of the field. He therefore ordered 
Gen. Buckner to move Preston forward. Before this, however. Gen. 
Buckner had established a battery of twelve guns, raking down the enemy's 
line which opposed our right wing, and at the same time having fine play 
upon any force that might attemj)t to reinforce the hill that he was about 
to attack. Gen. Stewart, of his corps, was also ordered to move against 
any such force in flank. The combination was well-timed and arranged. 
Preston dashed gallantly at the hill. Stewart flanked a reinforcing col- 
umn, and captured a large portion of it. At the same time, the fire of the 
battery struck such terrour into a heavy force close under it, that there 
were taken a large number of prisoners. Preston's assault, though not a 
complete success at the onset, taken in connection with the other opera- 
tions, crippled the enemy so badly that his ranks were badly l)roken, and 
by a flank movement and another advance tlie heights were gained. These 
reinforcements were the enemy's last or reserve corps, and a part also of 
the line that had been opposing our right wing during the morning. The 
enemy broke up in great confusion along Longstreet's front, and, about 
the same time, the right wing made a gallant dash, and gained tlie line 
that had been held so long and obstinately against it. A simultaneous 
and continuous shout from the two wings announced our success complete. 
The enemy had fought every man that he had, and every one had been in 
turn beaten. The day had been certainly saved by Longstreet ; but it is 
but justice to add that his masterly manoeuvre was followed up, and com- 
pleted by Gen. Polk, and that it was under their combined attack that the 
enemy at last gave up the field. 

The enemy was totally routed from right, left, and centre, and was in 
full retreat to Chattanooga, night alone preventing further pursuit. Poll's 
wing captured twenty-eight pieces of artillery, and Longstreet's twenty- 
one, making forty-nine pieces of cannon, both wings taking nearly an 



4:52 THE LOST CAUSE. 

equal number of prisoners, amounting to over eiglit thousand, with fifteen 
thousand stand of arms, and forty stands of regimental colours. The 
enemy's loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, could not have been less 
than twenty thousand. Our own loss was heavy, and was computed by 
Gen. Bragg as " two-fifths of his army." The enemy was known to have 
had all his available force on the field, including his reserve, with a por- 
tion of Burnside's corps, numbering not less than eighty thousand, while 
our force was not fifty thousand. Nothing was more brilliant in all of 
Napoleon's Italian campaigns. Chickamauga was equally as desperate as 
the battle of Areola ; but it was productive of no decisive results, and we 
shall see that it was followed, as many another brilliant victory of the 
Confederates, by almost immediate consequences of disaster. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



OONFKEKNOE OF GENS. BRAGG AND LONGSTEEET THE DAT AFTER THE BATTLE OF OHICKA- 
MAUGA. — LONGSTREKT's PLAN OF CAMPAIGN NORTH OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER. — WHY GEN. 
BRAGG DECLINED IT. — HIS INVESTMENT OF CHATTANOOGA. — HE CUTS OFF THE ENEMY's 

SUPPLIES. — HE HOPES TO STARVE THE GARRISON INTO SURRENDER. REORGANIZATION OP 

THE FEDERAL ARMIES IN THE "WEST. — GEN. GRANt's NEW AND LARGE COMMAND. — HIS 
FIRST TASK TO RELIEVE THOMAS IN CHATTANOOGA. — HIS SUCCESSFUL LODGMENT ON THE 
SOUTH SIDE OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER. — SURPRISE OF LONGSTREET. — THE CONFEDERATES 
RETREAT TO LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. — LONGSTREET MAKES A NIGHT ATTACK ON THE ENEMY's 
NEW POSITION, BUT IS REPULSED. — THE ENEMY ACCOMPLISHES THE RELIEF OF CHATTA- 
NOOGA. — DETACHMENT OF LONGSTREET FROM BRAGg's FRONT TO OPERATE AGAINST KNOX- 
VILLE. — THIS UNFORTUNATE MOVEMENT THE WORK OF PRESIDENT DAVIS. — MILITARY PRAG- 
MATISM AND VANITY OF THE CONFEDERATE PRESIDENT. — GRANT DETERMINES TO TAKE THE 
OFFENSIVE. — THE BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE. — EXTRAORDINARY STRENGTH OF THE CON- 
FEDERATE POSITION. — TWO ATTACKS REPULSED. — GENERAL ADVANCE OF THE FEDERAL 
LINES TO THE CREST OF MISSIONARY RIDGE. — AUDACITY OF THE MOVEMENT. — BAD CONDUCT 
OF THE CONFEDERATE TROOPS. — A SHAMEFUL PANIC. — CAUSES OF THE EXTRAORDINARY 
MISCONDUCT OF BRAGO's ARMY. — IT FALLS BACK TO DALTON. — LONGSTBEEt's EXPEDITION 
AGAINST KNOXVILLE. — HIS PURSUIT OF BURNSIDE. — HIS UNSUCCESSFUL ASSAULT ON FOKT 
SANDERS AT KNOXVILLE. — HE RETREATS TO EOGERSVILLE, IS CUT OFF FROM VIRGINIA, 
AND SPENDS THE WINTER IN NORTH-EASTERN TENNESSEE. — OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA IN 
THE FALL OF 1863. — LEE ATTEMPTS TO FLANK MEADE AND GET BETWEEN HIM AND WASH- 
INGTON. — AN EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE OF STUARt's CAVALRY. — MEADE RETREATS TO 
AND BEYOND BULL BUN. — FAILURE OF LEE's FLANK MOVEMENT, — INCIDENTS OF SUCCESS 
FOR THE CONFEDERATES. — LEE RETIRES TO THE RAPPAHANNOCK. — AFFAIR OF RAPPAHAN- 
NOCK BRIDGE. — AFFAIR OF GERMANIA FORD. — DESULTORY OPERATIONS BETWEEN LEe's 
LINES AND EAST TENNESSEE. — AVEEILl's RAID. — CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1SC3 IN 
VIRGINIA. 

The morning after the battle of Chickamaiiga, Gen. Bragg stopped at 
the bivouac of Longstreet, and asked his views as to future movements. 
Sen. Longstreet suggested crossing the river above Chattanooga, so as 
to make ourselves sufficiently felt on the enemy's rear, as to force his evacu- 
ation of Chattanooga — indeed, force him back upon Nashville, and, if we 
should find our transportation inadequate for a continuance of this move- 



454: THE LOST CAUSE. 

ment, to follow up the railroad to Knoxville, destroy Burnside, and from 
there threaten the enemy's railroad communication in rear of Nashville. 

The reasons which induced Gen. Bragg to decline this plan of cam- 
paign were detailed in a report to the War Department at Eichmond, in 
which he wrote : " The suggestion of a movement by our right, imme- 
diately after the battle, to the north of the Tennessee, and thence upon 
Nashville, requires notice only because it will find a place on the files of 
the Department. Such a movement was utterly impossible for want of 
transportation. Nearly half our army consisted of reinforcements just be- 
fore the battle, without a wagon or an artillery horse, and nearly, if not 
quite, a third of the artillery horses on the field had been lost. The rail- 
road bridges, too, had been destroyed to a point south of Ringgold, and on 
all the road from Cleveland to Knoxville. To these insurmountable difii- 
culties were added the entire absence of means to cross the river, except 
by fording at a few precarious points too deep for artillery, and the well- 
known danger of sudden rises, by which all communication would be cut 
off, a contingency which did actually happen a few days after the visionary 
scheme was proposed. But the most serious objection to the proposition 
was its entire want of military propriety. It abandoned to the enemy our 
entire line of communication, and laid open to him our depots of supplies, 
whilst it placed us with a greatly inferiour force beyond a difficult and, at 
times, impassable river, in a country affording no subsistence to men or 
animals. It also left open to the enemy, at a distance of only ten miles, 
our battle-field, with thousands of our wounded and his own and all the 
trophies and supplies we had won. All this was to be risked and given 
up for what ? To gain the enemy's rear, and cut him off from his depot 
of supplies by the route over the mountains, when the very movement 
abandoned to his unmolested use the better and more practicable route of 

half the length on the south side of the river Our supplies 

of all kinds were greatly reduced, the railroad having been constantly oc- 
cupied in transporting troops, prisoners, and our wounded, and the bridges 
having been destroyed to a point two miles south of Ringgold. These 
supplies were ordered to be replenished, and as soon as it was seen that 
we could be subsisted, the army was moved forward to seize and hold the 
only communication the enemy had with his supplies in the rear. His 
important road, and the shortest by half to his depot at Bridgej^ort, lay 
along the south bank of the Tennessee. The holding of this all-important 
route was confided to Lieut.-Gen. Longstreet's command, and its posses- 
sion forced the enemy to a road double the length, over two ranges of 
mountains, by wagon transportation. At the same time, our cavalry, in 
large force, was thrown across the river to operate on this long and difficult 
route. These dispositions, faithfully sustained, ensured the enemy's speedy 
evacuation of Chattanooga for want of food and forage. Possessed of the 



grant's belief of CnATTANOOGA. 455 

Ehortest road his depot and the one bj whicli reinforcements must reach him, 
ice held him at our mercy, and his destruction was only a question of time.'''' 

Tills was a bold statement of Bragg ; but it seemed that for once a least 
liis swollen boasts were to be realized, and the enemy at Chattanooga 
starved into surrender. Starvation or retreat stared in the ftice of the 
Army of the Cumberland ; its supplies liad to be dragged for sixty miles 
across the country and over abominable roads ; and even if it ventured on 
retreat, it would have to abandon its artillery and most of its materiel. At 
this critical period. Gen. Kosecrans was relieved. Gen. Thomas succeeding 
him ; and a few days afterwards. Gen. Grant arrived, having been placed 
in command of a military division, composed of the departments of the 
Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee, in which were the armies of Gens. 
Burnside, Thomas, and Sherman. 

It was the first task of Grant to relieve Thomas in Chattanooga. Rein- 
forced by Hooker with two corps, it was decided that this force should cross 
the Tennessee River at Bridgeport, making a lodgment on the south side 
of it, three miles below where Lookout Mountain abuts on the river — this 
movement being intended to open navigation to the ferry, thus shortening 
land transportation, and securing certain supplies to the Federal army. 

T'juY thousand men were detailed to execute this movement. Fifty 
pontoons, carrying twelve hundred men, were floated on the night of the 
26th October down the river, passing three miles in front of Longstreet's 
pickets, without drawing their attention. The alarm was not given until 
the enemy attempted a landing at the ferry ; and another body of three 
thousand Federals, who had marched down to a concealed camp opposite, 
being quickly ferried across, the Confederates were forced back and com- 
pelled to retreat to Lookout Mountain. In less than forty hours a whole 
corps of the enemy was across the river. A portion of this force halted in 
a position plainly visible from Lookout Mountain ; and a night attack on 
the 29th October was planned upon it by Longstreet, who hoped by a sur- 
prise to frustrate the entire movement, and to capture the whole of Hook- 
er's wagon train. The attack failed from insufficient force ; it was made 
with only six Confederate regiments, and was withdrawn after three hours' 
fighting witK considerable loss. Grant's lodgment on the south side of 
the Tennessee was now assured ; he was in firm possession of the new lines 
of communication ; he had attained all the results he had anticipated ; and 
his relief of Chattanooga was now to be taken as an accomplished fact. 

But although the Federal army near Chattanooga had now no fears of 
starvation or retreat, Grant hesitated to assume the ofi'ensive against the 
strong positions in his front. Gen. Sherman had been ordered from the 
region of the Mississippi with four divisions ; but before his arrival, Grant 
obtained the astounding news that Longstreet, with eleven thousand in- 
fantry, had been detached from Bragg's front (although the Confederates 



4:56 THE LOST CAUSE. 

weie in momentary expectation of battle, already overmatclied by num- 
bers, and in the face of an enemy drawing reinforcements from every 
quarter), and that this veteran commander, with the best part of the army, 
had gone to Knoxville to attack Burnside, and with the visionary project 
of regaining East Tennessee, and perhaps through its gateways again pen- 
etrating Kentucky, and making the battle-ground of the Confederacy in 
this impossible country. 

This extraordinary military movement was the work of President 
Davis, who seems, indeed, to have had a singular fondness for erratic cam- 
paigns. His visits to every battle-field of the Confederacy were ominous. 
He disturbed the plans of his generals ; his military conceit led him into 
the wildest schemes ; and so much did lie fear that the public would not 
ascribe to him the hoped-for results of the visionary project, that his van- 
ity invariably divulged it, and successes were foretold in public speeches 
with such boastful plainness, as to put the enemy on his guard and inform 
him of the general nature of the enterprise. On the 12th October Presi- 
dent Davis visited the field of Chickamauga. He planned the expedition 
against Knoxville. He was in furious love witb the extraordinary de- 
sign, and in a public address to the army he could not resist the tempta- 
tion of announcing that " the green fields of Tennessee would shortly again 
be theirs." 

The announcement of this enterprise alone remained to determine 
Grant to attack. Burnside was instructed to lure Longstreet to Knox- 
ville, and retire within his fortifications, where he could stand a protracted 
siege. Lookout Mountain had been evacuated by the Confederates, and 
Bragg had moved his troops up to the top of Missionary Eidge. 



THE BATTLE OF MISSIONARY EIDGE. / 

On the 25tli November, the enemy prepared for the grand assault, 
Sherman's force having come up, and occupied the northern extremity of 
Missionary Ridge. Hooker had scaled the rugged height of Lookout 
Mountain, and the Federal forces maintained an unbroken line, with 'open 
communications, from the north end of this dizzy eminence, through Cheat 
Valley, to the north end of Missionary Ridge. There were more than 
eighty thousand veteran troops in this formidable line. The Confederate 
army, numbering not half so many, had yet a position that sliould have 
decided the day. They held the crest of the ridge, from McFarlan's Gap 
almost to the mouth of the Chickamauga ; the position was four to six 
hundred feet in elevation ; and it had been strengthened by breastworks 
wherever the ascent was easy. The position was such that the enemy was 



II 



BATTLE OF SnSSIONAEY KIDGE. 457 

exposed to an artillery fire while in the plain, and to the infantry fire when 
he attempted the ascent of the hill or mountain. 

The right wing of the Confederates was held by Hardee, with the divi- 
sions of Cleburne, Walker, Cheatham, and Stevenson. Breckinridge com- 
manded on the left his old division, Stewart's, and part of Buckner's and 
Hindman's. The enemy's first assault was made upon Hardee, who re- 
pulsed it with great slaughter. The attack was made here by Sherman, 
and his bleeding columns staggered on the hill. A second attack on the 
Confederate left wing was ordered at noon, and repulsed. It was late in 
the afternoon, when, with an audacity wholly unexpected, Grant ordered 
a general advance of his lines to the crest of Missionary Ridge. As the 
Federal colunms moved up at a rapid rate, in face of the batteries, whose ill- 
directed and purposeless fire did not serve to check them, a brigade in the 
Confederate centre gave way, and in a few moments, what had been a regular 
and vigorous battle, became a disgraceful panic and an unmitigated rout. 
JSTever was a victory plucked so easily from a position so strong. Avail- 
ing himself of the first gap in the Confederate line, the enemy turned upon 
their flanks, and poured into them a terrible enfilading fire, that scattered 
them in confusion. The day was sliamefully lost. Gen. Bragg attempted 
to rally the broken troops ; he advanced into the fire, and exclaimed, 
" Here is your commander," and w^as answered with the derisive shouts of 
an absurd catch-phrase in the army, " Here's your mule." 

An army notoriously lacking confidence in their commander ; made 
weak and suspicious by the detachment from it of Longstreet's veteran 
divisions ; and utterly demoralized by one of Bragg's freaks of organiza- 
tion before the battle, in shufiling over all the commands, and putting the 
men under new oflicers, abandoned positions of great strength ; broke into 
K, disorderly retreat from a line which might easily have been held against 
twice their numbers ; and gave to the Confederacy what President Davis 
nnwilliugly pronounced " the mortification of the first defeat that had re- 
fulted from misconduct by the troops." 

The consequence of this disaster was that Gen. Bragg left in the hands 
of the enemy all of his strong positions on Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga 
Valley, and Missionary Ridge, and finally retired with his wdiole army to 
a position some twenty or thirty miles to the rear. His army was put in 
motion on the road to Ringgold, and thence to Dalton. Grant claimed 
as the fruits of his victory seven thousand prisoners, and forty -seven pieces 
of artillery. 



longstreet's expedition against knoxville. 
"We have seen that in the beginning of November Longstreet had been 



458 THE LOST CAUSE. 

despatclied by Bragg up the valley towards Knoxville, where Burnside 
was operating. A part of the army of the latter lay at Loudon, where 
Longstreet first struck and drove the enemy, capturing at Lenoir Station 
a train of eighty-five wagons, many of them loaded with valuable medical 
stores. At Bean Station he captured thirty wagons, a quantity of forage, 
and some horses ; and in the Clinch Valley, forty other wagons, laden 
with sugar and coffee. Burnside continued to fall back upon Knoxville, 
6ut was overtaken at Campbell's Station on the 16th of November. Here 
he was severely pressed by Longstreet, who hoped to break the retreat 
into a rout. A running fight of two miles ensued, and Burnside reached 
Knoxville at daylight the next morning ; Longstreet advancing, and laying 
regular siege to the place. 

But while he was investing the place, news came of the great disaster 
at Missionary Kidge, and Longstreet, well understanding that Grant would 
now detach a column to relieve Knoxville, saw the necessity of quick 
work, and determined to risk an assault upon the place. On a hill near 
the Kingston road was a work, called Fort Sanders, which commanded 
the approaches to the town. It was a very strong work, and in front of it 
were felled trees, with the tops turning in all directions, and making an 
almost impassable mass of brush and timber. A space around the fort was 
cleared, and the ditch in front was about ten feet deep, with the parapet 
nearly twenty feet high. 

In the morning of the 29th November, the assaulting column, consist- 
ing of three brigades of McLaw's division, moved up the slope, and was 
met by a heavy artillery fire, which fearfullly mowed down the advancing 
soldiers. Still onward they pushed, struggling through the network of 
fallen timber and other devices laid down to impede them. But, the in- 
ti-icate passage by which they had to mount, was too difficult for them 
easily to master. The foremost parties stumbled and fell over each other 
in confusion ; at the same time the enemy's fire poured fiercer and fiercer 
on their heads. The embrasures of the fort, and the whole line of the 
parapet blazed forth at once. Nevertheless, this did not effectually stop 
the advance. Pushing on over every obstacle, they soon reached within pis- 
tol-shot of the fort ; then, suddenly, the enemy's guns launched forth from 
every quarter, and the Confederate line was shattered. Some, however, 
managed to spring into the ditch, and clamber up the glacis, planting their 
flag almost side by side with the Federal colours. They were not sup- 
ported, however, by the rest of the charging colunin ; and the attack was 
withdrawn after a loss of some seven hundred in killed, wounded, and 
prisoners. 

Tlie assault having failed, and news of Sherman's approach from Chat- 
tanooga reaching him, Longstreet had no other alternative than to raise 
the siege, and occupy a new line of operations. He retreated towards Rut- 



OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA. 4i59 

ledge up the valley, pursued by the combined forces of Burnside and Sher- 
man. On the 13th December, he reached Bean Station, where, being hard 
pressed by the enemy, he turned and attacked his advance, driving him 
back to Russellville, Having shaken off the enemy here, Longstreet pro- 
ceeded to take a position in ISfortheastern Tennessee, establisliing liis head- 
quarters at Ilogersville. He had hoped to find his railroad communica- 
tions with Virginia opeu ; but at this time Averill's raid had cut the rail- 
road, compelling Longstreet to fall back upon his own resources, and com- 
pletely isolating him in a wild and difficult country. Tlie weather was 
bitterly cold ; the mountains were covered with snow ; more than half of 
the men were barefooted ; and tlie cavalry was engaged in daily skir- 
mishes with the enemy, while gleaning supplies east of a line drawn from 
Cumberland Gap to Cleveland. In February, 1S64, the lines of communi- 
cation with Virginia were repaired ; but it was not until tlie rigour of 
winter broke that the hardy soldiers under Longstreet united again with 
Gen. Lee in Virginia, and were on the old ground about Gordonsville. 



OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA IN THE FALL OF 1863. 

"While such was the train of disaster that followed the brilliant but ill- 
stan'ed victory of Chickamauga, the record of the operations of the Army 
of Northern Virginia was comparatively slight, and afforded but little 
compensation with reference to the general fortunes of the war. From 
July until October, Gen. Lee quietly rested on the Rapidan, without any 
incident beyond a grand review of his army. Longstreet had been de- 
tached from him ; Meade had lost two corps under Hooker, \vhich had 
been sent to balance the Confederate reinforcement on the Tennessee lines ; 
and the two armies, thus diminished, continued to watch each other, until 
the public. North and South, became anxious and clamorous for fresh 
struggles and a new excitement. 

That excitement was suddenly given. In October, Gen. Lee prepared 
to put into execution a campaign, which promised the most brilliant re- 
sults, as its ultimate object appears to have been to flank Meade, and get 
between the enemy and Washington. The movement commenced on the 
9tli October, when Gen. Lee with a portion of his command crossed the 
river, and by circuitous and concealed roads contrived to get up near Cul- 
pepper without notice of the enemy. A cavalry division and a detach- 
ment of infantry under Gen. Fitzhugh Lee remained to hold the lines south 
of the Bapidan and to make a show of force there to deceive the enemy ; 
while Gen. Stuart advanced with Hampton's division to protect from ob- 
Bcrvation the flank of the army then moving towards Madison Court- 
Ilouse. 



460 THE LOST CAUSE. 

On the lltli the bulk of the Confederate army was at Culpepper ; the 
command of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, uniting with that of Stuart, quickly fol- 
lowed ; and Lee had now so manoeuvred that he had actually turned 
Meade's flank. But unfortunately for the success of the movement, the 
Federal commander had taken timely alarm ; he had crossed the Kappa- 
hannock, and was rapidly retreating along the line of railroad running to 
Alexandria. 

On the 12t]i, Lee arrived on the Kappahannock, at Warrenton Springs, 
after a skirmish with the Federal cavalry at Jeffersonton. That night, 
Gen. Stuart pushed on to "Warrenton. He had guarded the flank of the 
army, driven oft' the enemy's forces everywhere, and performed invaluable 
service. TJie next day the army pushed on, the cavalry now in advance. 
Meade's army was at this time across the Rappahannock, and believed to 
have halted at Warrenton Junction, and between that point and Catlett's 
Station. Two thousand cavahy were sent down from Warrenton to recon- 
noitre in the direction of Catlett's. On arriving near the latter place, they 
found the enemy were moving heavy columns of infantry along the rail- 
road towards Manassas ; and they thereupon immediately turned to re- 
trace their steps toward Warrenton ; but on reaching a road which crossed 
their route, leading from Warrenton Junction to Manassas, they found 
that the enemy were also moving infantry "^ large masses along this road. 
They were thus completely hemmed in. Nothing remained but to " lay 
low," in camp parlance, within a distance of the enemy where every word 
of command could be distinctly heard. 

The body of Confederate cavalry was concealed in a thicket of pines. 
Tlie accidental discharge of a fire-arm, the neighing of a horse, the rattling 
of an artillery chain, would have discovered them to the enemy. The 
night was passed in fearful suspense. Stuart gave his ofiicers and men to 
understand that surrender was not to be thought of, but that the enemy 
was to be fought to the last. A council of war having been called, it was 
resolved, as the best thing that could be done under the circumstances, to 
desert the nine pieces of horse artillery, and for the cavalry in six columns 
to endeavour to cut their way through the enemy. But after some reflec- 
tion, Stuart resolved not to do this. At daybreak the rear-guard of the 
enemy were seen in camp cooking their breakfasts, not a quarter of a mile 
distant. Gen. Stuart had sent several scouts on foot through the enemy's 
lines to announce his situation to Gen. Lee. He ordered them to put on 
infantry knapsacks, and, shouldering nmskets, to advance in the darkness 
to the road, fall into the enemy's column, and, crossing it, to make their 
way to Warrenton, and say to Gen. Lee that he was surrounded, and lie 
" must send some of his people to help hini out." Three of the scouts 
reached Warrenton in safety. 

The last division of the enemy halted and bivouacked opposite Stuart 



lee's flank movement. ^ 461 

and within one hundred and fifty yards of his position — so close that he 
could hear the Federal cavalrymen pouring out oats to feed their horses. 
During the night two of Meade's staff straggled into his lines, and were 
taken prisoners. At daylight next morning, Stuart was informed by the 
cracking of skirmishers' muskets, that Lee had received his message, and 
was sending " some of his people " to help him. As Lee's advancing col- 
umns attracted the enemy's attention, Stuart, from the rear, opened on them 
with grape and canister. The enemy was much disordered by the cannon- 
ade from so unexpected a quarter, and, taking advantage of the confusion, 
Stuart limbered up his giins, and, with cavalry and artillery, dashed through 
the hostile ranks, and rejoined Gen. Lee. The enemy suffered a loss of one 
hundred and eighty killed in this affair. 

Lee's whole army was reunited at Warrenton, and a halt was made to 
supply the troops with provisions. On the 14th, he again pushed on in 
two columns, and, by different roads towards Bristoe Station, where the 
rear-guard of Meade, under Gen. Warren, was attacked by the advance of 
Gen. Hill, As Hill's corps approached the station, what appeared to be 
a small portion of the enetny was discovered behind a long embankment 
of the railroad, and two brigades of Heth's division were ordered to dis- 
lodge them. A severe action ensued, in which Hill was repulsed, with 
three or four hundred killed and w^ounded, and the loss of five pieces of 
artillery. 

Before the main body of Lee's army could get up the action was over , 
Meade had retreated across Broad Run ; and the next morning was re- 
ported to be fortifying beyond Bull Run. The enemy had thus been forced 
back to the old battle-fields around Centreville and Manassas. Gen. Lee 
deemed it unwise to continue the pursuit further, as the entrenchments 
around Washington and Alexandria rendered it impossible to turn Meade's 
position ; and the country affording no subsistence to the Confederate 
i army, while the enemy, on the other hand, was at the door of his maga- 
zines, it returned to the line of the Rappahannock. 

Tlie flank movement had failed in what it had designed ; but it was 
accompanied with a considerable success in the Yallcy district ; the sum 
of its incidents was in favour of the Confederates, and its visible fruits 
were large. Gen. Imboden, who commanded in the Shenandoah Valley, 
had been left to guard the mountain passes, while the flank movement and 
advance of Lee was in progress. He not only performed this service, but 
on the 18tli October, pressed on to Charlestown, took the town with four 
hmidred and thirty-four prisoners, and brought off a large amount of cap- 
tured property. 

The entire movement of October cost the Confederates about one thou- 
6and men. Its fruits were two thousand four hundred and thirty-six pris- 
oners, including forty-one commissioned oflicers. The railroad was do- 



462 THE LOST CAUSE. 

strojed from Manassas to Rappahannock Station ; and Gen. Lee having 
placed his troops again in position, on both sides of tlie railway, upon the 
line of the Rappahannock, Ewell on the right, Hill upon the left, and the 
cavalry protecting each flank, quietly avraited the time when Meade, re- 
pairing the railroad, should again advance and confront him. 

On the 6th November the enemy came in force upon Lee's army at 
Rappahannock Station and Kelly's Ford. Near the latter place the enemy 
crossed the I'iver ; and Gen. Rodes, who had fallen back before superiour 
numbers, was reinforced by Johnson's division. To meet the demonstra- 
tion at the bridge near which Ewell's corps was stationed, Early's division 
was put in motion, and the two brigades of Hoke and Hayes were passed 
to the other side, to hold the north bank, and watch the enemy's front. It 
was believed that these troops M'ould be able to maintain their position if 
attacked, the nature of the position being such that the enemy could not 
attack with a front more extended than their own ; and that even if they 
were compelled to withdraw, they might do so safely under cover of the 
guns on the banks of the river. 

Tlie night was excessively dark ; a high wind efiectually prevented the 
movements of the enemy being heard ; and taking advantage of these cir- 
cumstances, two entire Federal corjDS advanced to overwhelm the small 
force of Confederates exposed on the north side of the river. The first line 
of the enemy was broken and shattered ; but the second and third lines 
continued to advance, overwhelming Hayes, and, by a movement toward? 
the left, enclosing Hoke's brigade in a manner that rendered escape im- 
possible. Owing, it is said, to an opposite wind, no information was ob- 
tained of the attack on the south side of the river, until too late for the 
artillery stationed there to aid in repelling it. The darkness of the night 
and the fear of injuring our own men, who were surrounded by and corn- 
mingled witli the enemy, prevented Gen. Early from using artillery ; and 
the unlucky commander witnessed the loss of the greater portion of two 
of his brigades, without, as he declared, the possibility of an effort to ex- 
tricate them. Many of our men effected their escape in the confusion ; 
some by swimming the river, and others by making their way to the 
Ijridge, passing over under a shower of balls. But not less than two thou- 
sand prisoners were left in the hands of the enemy, and was the cost to us 
of this unfortunate surprise. 

On the 27th November, another incident, but without general signifi- 
cance, occurred on the line of the Rappahannock. On that day Meade again 
advanced upon the Confederates at Germania Ford, his immediate object 
being to get in the rear of Johnson's division, which was posted in the ad- 
vance about a mile and a half from the river. In the action thus brought 
on, the enemy was punished and repulsed with a loss of several hundred 
in killed and wounded. The next day, Meade withdrew from the front, 



CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1363. 463 

and re-occupied bis position about Brandy Station on the Orange and Alex- 
andria Kailroad. This virtually ended the campaign for the year 1863, 

In other parts of Yirginia there were operations about the close of the 
year, which must be very briefly and generally referred to, as they belong 
to a very minor theatre of the war. That theatre lay between Gen. Lee's 
lines in Yirginia and East Tennessee in the district commanded by the 
active and eccentric Gen. Sam Jones, and almost constantly disturbed by 
incursions and raids of the enemy. Here the great annoyance was from 
the famous Federal raider Averill, who, after a various and unequal career, 
succeeded in December, 1863, in striking the Virginia and Tennessee Rail- 
road at Salem, and badly severing what was at that time the most impor- 
tant line of communication in the Confederacy. 

Gen. Lee finding no prospect of Longstreet's arrival or other reinforce- 
ment from the West, retired to the old line of the Eapidan. The Federal 
forces went into winter-quarters on the line of the Rappahannock about the 
6th December ; the Confederate army did the same on the Rapidan ; and 
the curtain of winter dropped on the great scenes of the war in Yirginia, 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 

ErFHCT OF THE FEDERAL SUCCESSES OF 1863 ON THE NORTHERN ELECTIONS, — ESTIMATE IS TTIB 
EICHMOND NEWSPAPERS OF THE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE IN THE NORTH. — LOSSES OP THE 
DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN THE ELECTIONS OF 1863. — PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S TRIUMPH. — HIS 
ADMINISTRATION STRENGTHENED. — IT VENTURES TO NEW LENGTHS. — ARREST OF MR. TAL- 
LANDIGHAM. — PROTESTS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. — THEIR WORTHLESS AND RIDICULOUS 
CHARACTER. — NEW AND VIGOROUS MEASURES OF WAR AT WASHINGTON. — SCARCITY OF 
MEN AND OF FOOD THE TWO CONCERNS AT RICHMOND. — MEAGRE RESULTS OF THE CON- 
SCRIPTION LAW. — AN ALARMING STATEMENT FROM THE CONFEDERATE SECRETARY OF 
WAR. — DIMINUTION OF SUBSISTENCE IN THE CONFEDERACY. — SUFFERING AMONG THB 
PEOPLE AND ARMY. — HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSARIAT. — REPORT OF THE 
MEAT SUPPLIES IN THE CONFEDERACY IN JANUARY, 1862. — EFFECT OF THE CAMPAIGNS IN 
KENTUCKT AND TENNESSEE ON THE QUESTION OF SUBSISTENCE. — PROPOSITION TO GET 

MEAT THROUGH THE ENEMY's LINES. OBSTINATE OBJECTIONS OF PRESIDENT DAVIS. — HIS 

MANIA ABOUT COTTON. — THE CONFEDERATE STATES DRAINED OF MEAT IN THE SECOND 
TEAR OF THE WAR. — STATEMENT OF COMMISSARY NORTHROP. — ATTEMPT TO GET SUPPLIES 
THROUGH THE BLOCKADE. — HOW MISMANAGED. — THE CRENSHAW CONTRACT. — SMALL 
YIELD OF IMPRESSMENTS. — THE WHOLE CONFEDERATE POLICY OF SUBSISTENCE A FAILURE. 
— AN EXTRAORDINARY DEVICE OF SECRETARY SEDDON. — HOW IT PLAYED INTO THE HANDS 
OF SPECULATORS. — REFLECTION UPON THE WANT OF THE COMMERCIAL OR BUSINESS FAC- 
ULTY IN THE SOUTHERN MIND. — A STOCK OF CHILDISH EXPEDIENTS. 

The Federal successes of 1863 produced a well-defined effect upon 
political parties in the IN'orth, and the elections there of this year were in 
remarkable contrast to those of 1862. It is significant of the little virtue 
of all the political organizations of tlie Korth daring the time of the war 
that opposition to the administration at Washington was checked at every 
Buccess of its arms, and declined in exact proportion as its military power 
ascended. The weak instinct of politicians readily took to the stronger 
side ; and although there was a large party in the Confederacy that looked 
for a certain co-operation of the Democratic party in the North, it waa 
readily understood by the intelligent that that co-operation was only to be 
obtained by making the Confederate side the stronger, by increasing the 
prospects of its success by victories in the field — in short, that the oulj 



ELECTIONS OF 186:5. 465 

hope of peace for the South was in the vigour of her resistance and the 
pressure of the enemy's necessities. This estimate of the Democratic 
alliance in the North was plainly enough stated in the Kichmond journals 
and put in very blunt English. In anticipation of the elections of 18G3, 
the Richmond Enquirer said : " It is nothing to us which of their factions 
may devour their ' spoils ; ' just as little does it signify to us whether they 
recover or do not recover that constitutional liberty which they so wan- 
tonly threw away in the mad pursuit of Southern conquest and plunder. 
But it is of the utmost importance to us to aid in stimulating disaffection 
among Yankees against their own government, and in demoralizing and 
disintegrating society in that God-abandoned country. We can do this 
only in one way — namely, by thrashing their armies and carrying the war 
to their own firesides. Then, indeed, conscientious constitutional princi- 
ples will hold sway ; peace platforms will look attractive ; arbitrar)" arrests 
will become odious, and habeas corpus be quoted at a premium. This is 
the only way we can help them. In this sense and to this extent, those 
Democrats are truly our allies, and we shall endeavour to do our duty by 
them." 

The Democratic party in the North went into the fall elections of 1863 
on the issue of a general opposition to the Lincoln Administration ; at the 
same time promising a vigorous " constitutional " prosecution of the war. 
The result was a triumph of the Administration from Minnesota to Maine ; 
the Democrats were everywhere defeated ; and the significance of this 
defeat was that opposition to the authorities at Washiiigton had been sub- 
dned either by the strong hand of lawless power or by the appliance of 
selfish arguments, that they had no longer anything to fear, and that the 
overthrow of free government in the North was complete. President Lin- 
coln wrote that " the crisis was past." The elections of ISCio had given 
him, as it were, a carte hlanche for his government. Certainly no more 
striking illustration could be given of this fact than the arrest and exile of 
Mr. Yallandigham, who was probably the most talented and prominent 
representative of the so-called " peace party " in the North, and had stood 
as Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio. This single act of the 
Washington Administration is sufficient illustration of the license it had 
now assumed in the insolent and giddy moments of military success, and 
the lengths to which it now dared to go in defying the Constitution, and 
involving the liberties of its own people with the designs of the war.* 

* The following correspondence, with reference to the case of Mr. Yallandigham, discusses the 
whole subject of Military Arrests, and covers a topic in the war so large and important, that a fuU 
copy of it is afforded for the reference of the reader : 
" To His Excellency the President of the United States . 

" The undersigned, officers of a public meeting held at the city of Albany on the sixteenth day of 
May, instant, herewith transmit to your Excellency a copy of the resolutions adopted at the said 
30 



4:66 THE LOST CAUSE. 

It is true that the outrage upon Mr. Yallandigliam, and,*t^^rough him, 
upon the whole body of American liberties, \ras the occasion of some forcible 

Heeling, and respectfully request your earnest consideration of them. They deem it proper on tlieir 
personal responsibility to state that the meeting was one of the most respectable as to numbers and 
chitacter, and one of the most earnest in the support of the Union ever held in this city. 

" Yours, with great regard, 

" Erastus Corning, President. 

" Resolutions. 

" Resolved, That the Democrats of New York point to their uniform course of action during the 
two years of civil war through which we have passed, to the alacrity which they have evinced in fill- 
ing the ranks of the army, to their contributions and sacrifices, as the evidence of their patriotism 
and devotion to the cause of our imperilled country. Never in the history of civil wars has a gov- 
ernment been sustained with such ample resources of means and men as the people have voluntarily 
placed in the hands of the Administration. 

" Resolved, That as Democrats we are determined to maintain this patriotic attitude, and, despite 
of adverse and disheartening circumstances, to devote all our energies to sustain the cause of the 
Union, to secure peace through victory, and to bring back the restoration of all the States under the 
safeguards of the Constitution. 

" Resolved, That while we will not consent to be misapprehended upon these points, we are deter- 
mined not to be misunders-tood in regard to others not less essential. We demand that the Admin- 
istration shall be true to the Constitution ; shall recognize and maintain the rights of the States and 
the liberties of the citizen ; shall everywhere, outside of the lines of necessary military occupation 
and the scenes of insurrection, exert all its powers to maintain the supremacy of the civil over mili- 
tary law. 

" Resolved, That in view of these principles we denounce the recent assumption of a military com- 
mander to seize and try a citizen of Ohio, Clement L. Vallandigham, for no other reason than words 
addressed to a public meeting, in criticism of the course of the Administration, and in condemnation 
of the military orders of that General. 

" Renolved, That this assumption of power by a military tribunal, if successfully asserted, not 
only abrogates the right of the people to assemble and discuss the affairs of government, the liberty 
01 speech and of the press, the right of trial by jury, the law of evidence, and the privilege of habeas 
corpus, but it strikes a fatal blow at the supremacy of law, and the authority of the State and fed- 
eral constitutions. 

*' Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States — the supreme law of the land — haa 
aetined the crime of treason against the United States to consist ' only in levying war against them, 
or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort ; ' and has provided that ' no person 
shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on 
confession in open court.' And it further provides that ' no person shall be held to answer for a 
capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except 
in cases arising in the land and naval forces, or in the miUtia, when in actual service in time of war 
or public danger ; ' and further, that ' in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right 
of a speedy and public tria^ oy an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime was com- 
mitted.' 

" Resolved, That these safeguards of the rights of the citizen against the pretensions of arbitrary 
power were intended more especially for his protection in times of civil commotion. They were 
secured substantially to the English people, after years of protracted civil war, and were adopted into 
our Constitution at the close of the Revolution. They have stood the test of seventy-six years of 
trial, under our republican system, under circumstances which show that, while they constitute the 
foundation of all free government, they are the elements of the enduring stability of the H'pulilic. 

" Resolved, That, in adopting the language of Daniel Webster, we declare, ' it is the ;ii.cient and 
undoubted prerogative of this people to canvass public measures and the merits of pu])lic men.' It 



ARREST OF VALLANDIGHAM. 46? 

ox]3ressions of public indignation. A Democratic meeting ia New Jersey 
resolved " that in the illegal seizure and banishment of the Hon. C. L. 

is a ' home-bred right,' a fireside privilege. It has been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin 
in the nation. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air or walking on the earth. Belong*- 
ing to private life as a right, it belongs to pubUc life as a duty, and it is the last duty which those 
whose representatives we are shall find us to abandon. Aiming at all times to be courteous and tem- 
perate in its use, except when the right itself is questio&ed, we shall place ourselves on the extreme 
boundary of our own right, and bid defiance to any arm that would move us from our groimd. 
• This high constitutional privilege we shall defend and exercise in all places — in time of peace, m 
time of war, and at all times. Living, we shall assert it ; and should we leave no other inheritance 
to our children, by the blessing of God we will leave them the inheritance of free principles and the 
example of a manly, independent, and constitutional defence of them.' 

" Resolved^ That in the election of Governor Seymour, the people of this State, by an emphatic 
majority, declared their condemnation of the system of arbitrary arrests and their determination to 
stand by the Constitution. That the revival of this lawless system can have but one result — to 
divide and distract the North, and destroy its confidence in the purposes of the Administration. 
That we deprecate it as an element of confusion at home, of weakness to our armies in the field, and 
as calculated to lower the estimate of American character and magnify the apparent peril of our 
cause abroad. And that, regarding the blow struck at a citizen of Ohio as aimed at the rights of 
every citizen of the Xorth, we denounce it as against the spirit of our laws and Constitution, and 
most earnestly call upon the President of the United States to reverse the action of the military tribu- 
nal which has passed a ' cruel and unusual punishment ' upon the party arrested, prohibited in terms 
by the Constitution, and to restore him to the liberty of which he has been deprived. 

" Resolved, That the President, Vice-Presidents, and Secretary of tiiis meeting be requested Ui 
transmit a copy of these resolutions to his Excellency the President of the United States, with the 
assurance of this meeting of their hearty and earnest desire to support the Government in every con- 
stitutional and lawful measure to suppress the existing rebellion. 



"PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S REPLY. 

" Executive Mansion, Washington, June 12, 1863. 
" Hon. Erastus Corning and others : 

" Gkntlemen : Your l^^tter of May 19th, inclosing the resolutions of a public meeting held at 
Albany, New York, on the 16th of the same month, was received several days ago. 

" The resolutions, as I understand them, are resolvable into two propositions — first, the expres- 
sion of a purpose to sustaja the cause of the Union, to secure peace through victory, and to support 
the Administration in evei-y constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebelhon ; and second- 
ly, a declaration of censure upon the Administration for supposed unconstitutional action, such as 
the making of military arrests. And from the two propositions a third is deduced, which is, tliat 
the gentlemen composing the meeting are resolved on doing their part to maintain our common Gov- 
ernment and country, despite the folly or wickedness, as they may conceive, of any Administration. 
This position is eminently patriotic, and as such, I thank the meeting and congratulate the nation 
for it. My own purpose is the same ; so that the meeting and myself have a common object, and can 
have uo difference, except in the choice of means or measures for effecting that object. 

"And here I ought to close this paper, and would close it, if there were no apprehension thai 
more Jnjtirious consequences than any merely personal to myself might follow the censures systemat- 
ically cast upon me for doing what, in my view of duty, I could not forbear. The resolutions prora- 
y^ to support me in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion ; and I have 
»^t knowingly employed, nor shall knowingly employ, any other. But the meeting, by their resolu- 
tions, assert »iDd argue that certain military arrests, and proceedings following them, for which I am 
ultimately t«»sipQiiidble »ce uqiconstitutional. I think they are not. The resolutions quote from the 



468 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Vallandigham, the laws of the country have been ontra£ced, the name of 
the United States disgraced, and the rights of every citizen menaced, and 

Constitution the definition of treason, and also the limiting safeguards and guarantees tbereip pro- 
vided for the citizen on trial for treason, and on his being held to answer for capital or otherwise 
infamous crimes, and, in criminal prosecutions, his right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial 
jury. They proceed to resolve ' that these safeguards of the rights of the citizens against the pre- 
tensions of arbitrary power were intended more especially for his protection in times of civil commo- 
tion.' And, apparently to demonstrate the proposition, the resolutions proceed : ' They were secured 
substantially to the English people after years of protracted civil war, and were adopted into our 
Constitution at the close of the Revolution.' Would not the demonstration have been better, if it 
could have been truly said that these safeguards had been adopied and applied during the civil wars 
and during our Revolution, instead of after the one and at the close of the other ? I, too, am devo- 
tedly for them after civil war, and before civil war, and at all times, ' except when, in cases of rebel- 
lion or invasion, the public safety may require ' their suspension. The resolutions proceed to tell us 
that these safeguards ' have stood the test of seventy-six years of trial, under our republican system, 
under circumstances which show that while they constitute the foundation of all free government, 
they are the elements of the enduring stability of the republic' No one denies that they have so 
stood the test up to the beginning of the present rebellion, if we accept a certain occurrence at New 
Orleans ; nor does any one question that they will stand the same test much longer after the rebel- 
lion closes. But these provisions of the Constitution have no application to the case we have in 
hand, because the arrests complained of were not made for treason — that is, not for the treason 
defined in the Constitution, and upon the conviction of which the punishment is death ; nor were 
*^he proceedings following, in any constitutional or legal sense, ' criminal prosecutions.' The arrests 
were made on totally different grounds, and the proceedings following accorded with the grounds of 
the arrests. Let us consider the real case with which we are dealing, and apply to it the parts of 
the Constitution plainly made for such cases. 

" Prior to my installation here it liad been inculcated that any State had a lawful right to secedfi 
from the Union, and that it would be expedient to exercise the right whenever the devotees of the 
doctrine should fail to elect a President to their own liking. I was elected contrary to their liking; 
and accordingly, so far as it was legally possible, they had taken seven States out of the Union, had 
seized many of the United States forts, and had fired upon the United States flag, all before I was 
inaugurated, and, of course, before I had done any official act whatever. The rebellion thus begun 
soon ran into the present civil war ; and, in certain respects, it begun on very unequal terms between 
the parties. The insurgents had been preparing for it more than ^hirty years, while the Government 
had taken no steps to resist them. The former had carefully considered all the means which could 
be turned to their account. It undoubtedly was a well-pondered rehance with them that in their own 
unrestricted eiForts to destroy Union, Constitution, and law, all together, the Government would, in 
great degree, be restrained by the same Constitution and law from arresting their progress. Their 
sympathizers pervaded all departments of the Government and nearly all communities of the people. 
From this material, under cover of ' liberty of speech,' ' liberty of the press,' and habeas corpus^ they 
hoped to keep on foot amongst us a most efficient corps of spies, informers, supphers, and aiders and 
abettors of their cause in a thousand ways. They knew that in times such as they were inaugurat- 
ing, by the Constitution itself, the habeas corpus might be suspended ; but they also knew they had 
friends who would make a question as to who was to suspend it ; meanwhile their spies and others 
might remain at large to help on their cause. Or if, as has happened, the executive should suspend 
the writ, without ruinous waste of time, instances of arresting innocent persons might occur, as are 
always likely to occur in such cases ; and then a clamor could be raised in regard to this, wliich 
might be, at least, of some service to the insurgent cause. It needed no very keen perception fo di» 
cover this part of the enemy's programme so soon as by open hostilities their machinery was fairly 
put in motion. Yet, thoroughly imbued with a reverence for the guaranteed rights of individuals, I 
was slow to adopt the strong measures which by degrees I have been forced to regard as being with- 
in tLe exceptions of the Constitution and as indispensable to the public safety. Nothing is better 



m\ 



DEMOCKATIO PROTESTS. 469 

that it is now the duty of a law-respecting people to demand cf tho 
Administration that it at once and forever desist from such deeds of des« 

known to history than that courts of justice are utterly incompetent to such cases. Civil courts are 
organized chiefly for trials of individuals, or, at most, a few individuals acting in concert ; and this 
in quiet times, and on charges of crimes well defined iu the law. Even in times of peace, bands of 
horso-thieves and robbers frequently grow too numerous and powerful for the ordinary courts of jus- 
lice. But what comparison in numbers have such bands ever borne to the insurgent sympathizers 
even in many of the loyal States ? Again, a jury too frequently has at least one member more ready 
to hang the panel than to hang the traitor. And yet, again, he who dissuades one man from volun- 
teering, or induces one soldier to desert, weakens the Union cause as much as he who kills a Union 
soldier in battle. Yet this dissuasion or inducement may be so conducted as to be no defined crime 
of which any civil court would take cognizance. 

" Ours is a case of rebellion — so called by the resolutions before me — in fact, a clear, flagrant, 
and gigantic case of rebellion ; and the provision of the Constitution that ' the privilege of the writ 
of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public 
safety may require it,' is the provision which specially applies to our present case. This provision 
plainly attests the understanding of those who made the Constitution, that ordinary courts of justice 
are inadequate to ' cases of rebellion ' — attests their purpose that, in such cases, men may be held in 
custody whom the courts, acting on ordinary rules, would discharge. Habeas corpus does not dis- 
charge men who are proved to be guilty of defined crime ; and its suspension is allowed by the Con- 
stitution on purpose that men may be arrested and held who cannot be proved to be guilty of defined 
crime, ' when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.' This is precisely 
our present case — a case of rebellion, wherein the public safety does require the suspension. lo- 
deed, arrests by process of courts, and arrests in cases of rebellion, do not proceed together alto- 
gether upon the same basis. The former is directed at the small percentage of ordinary and con- 
tinuous perpetration of crime, while the latter is directed at sudden and extensive uprisings against 
the government, which, at most, will succeed or fail in no great length of time. In the latter case, 
arrests are made, not so much for what has been done as for what probably would be done. The 
latter is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive than the former. In such cases the pur- 
poses of men are much more easily understood than in cases of ordinary crime. The man who 
stands by and says nothing when the peril of his government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. 
If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy ; much more, if he talks ambiguously — talks for his 
country with ' buts,' and ' ifs,' and ' ands.' Of how little value the constitutional provisions I have 
quoted will be rendered, if arrests shall never be made until defined crimes shall have been com- 
mitted, may be illustrated by a few notable examples. General John C. Breckinridge, General Rob- 
ert E. Lee, General Joseph E. Johnston, General John B. Magruder, General William B. Preston, 
General Simon B. Buckner, and Commodore Franklin Buchanan, now occupying the very highest 
places in the rebel war service, were all within the power of the government since tho rebellion 
began, and were nearly as well known to be traitors then as now. Unquestionably, if we had seized 
and held them, the insurgent cause would be much weaker. But no one of them had then com- 
mitted any crime defined in the law. Evei'y one of them, if arrested, would have been discharged on 
habeas corptis, were the writ allowed to operate. In view of these and similar cases, I think the 
time not unhkely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too 
many. 

" By the third resolution, the meeting indicate their opinion that military arrests may be consti- 
tutional in localities where rebellion actually exists, but that such arrests are unconstitutional in 
localities where rebellion or insurrection does not actually exist. They insist that such arrests shall 
not be made ' outside of the lines of necessary military occupation and the scenes of insurrection.' 
Inasmuch, however, as the Constitution itself makes no such distinction, I am unable to believe that 
there is any such constitutional distinction. I concede that the class of arrests complained of can 
be constitutional only when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require them ; 
and I insist that in such cases they are constitutional wherever the public safety does require them. 



470 THE LOST CAUSE. 

potism and crime." To a meeting in Philadelphia, Mr. Fernando "Wood 
wrote : " Do not let us forget that those who perpetrate such outrages as 

as well in places to which they may prevent the rebellion extending as in those where it ^ay 
be already prevailing ; as well where they may restrain mischievous interference with the raising 
and supplying of armies to suppress the rebelhon, as where the rebellion may actually be ; as well 
where they may restrain the enticing men out of the army, as where they would prevent mutiny in 
the army ; equally constitutional at all places where they will conduce to the public safety, as 
against the dangers of rebellion or invasion. Take the particular case mentioned by the meeting. 
It is asserted, in substance, that Mr. Vallandigham was, by a military commander, seized and tried 
' for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting, in criticism of the course of the 
Administration, and in condemnation of the military orders of the general.' Now, if there be no 
mistake about this — if this assertion is the truth and the whole trutli — if there was up other reason 
for the arrest, then I concede that the arrest was wrong. But the arrest, as I understand, was made 
for a very different reason. Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the Union ; 
and his arrest was made because he was labouring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, 
to encourage desertions from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force 
to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the Adminis- 
tration, or the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging the army, 
upon the existence and vigour of which tlie life of the nation depends. He was warring upon the 
military, and this gave the military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallan- 
digham was not damaging the power of the country, then his arrest was made on mistake of fact, 
which I would be glad to correct on reasonably satisfactory evidence. 

" I understand the meeting, whose resolutions I am now considering, to be in favour of suppress- 
ing the rebellion by military force — by armien. Long experience has shown that armies cannot be 
maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, 
and the law and the Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a si'iiple-miniled soldier 
boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert ? This 
is none the less injurious wlien effected by getting a father or brother or friend into a public meet- 
ing, and there working upon his feelings till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy that he is 
fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptible government, too weak to 
arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case to silence the agitator and save 
the boy is not only constitutional, but withal a great mercy. 

" If I be wrong on this question of constitutional power, my errour lies in believing that certain 
proceedings are constitutional when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety requires them, 
which would not be constitutional when, in absence of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does 
not require them. In other words, that the Constitution is not in its appUcation in all respects the 
same, in cases of rebellion or invasion involving the public safety, as it is in times of profound peace 
and public security. The Constitution itself makes the distinction ; and I can no more be persuaded 
that the government can constitutionally take no strong measures in time of rebellion, because it 
can be shown that the same could not be lawfully taken in time of peace, than I can be persuaded 
that a particular drug is not good medicine for a sick man, because it can be shown not to be good 
food for a well one. Nor am I able to appreciate the danger apprehended by the meeting that the 
American people will, by means of military arrests during the rebellion, lose the right of public dis- 
cussion, the liberty of speech and the press, law of evidence, trial by jury and habeas corpus, 
throughout the indefinite peaceful future, which I trust lies before them, any more than I am able 
to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary illness as to 
persist in feeding upon them during the remainder of his healthful life. 

" In giving the resolutions that earnest consideration which you request of me, I cannot over- 
look the fact tVat the meeting speak as ' democrats.' Nor can I, with full respect for their known 
mtelligenco, and tee fairly presumed deliberation with which they prepared their resolutions, be per- 
mitted to suppose that this occurred by accident, or in any way other than that they preferred to 
designate themselves ' democrats ' rather than ' American citizens.' In this time of national peril 1 



DEMOCRATIC PROTESTS. 471 

the arrest and banishment of Mr, Vallandigham do so as necessary war 
measures. Let us, therefore, strike at the cause and declare for peace and 

would have preferred to meet you upon a level one step liiirher than any party platform, because 1 
am sure that, from such more elevated position, we could do better battle for the country we all love 
than we possibly can from those lower ones where, from the force of habit, the prejudices of the 
past and selfish hopes of the future, we are sure to expend much of our ingenuity and strength in 
finding fault with and aiming blows at each other. But since you have denied me this, I will yet be 
thankful, for the country's sake, that not all democrats have done so. He on whose discretionary 
judgment Mr. Vallandigham was arrested and tried is a democrat, having no old party affinity with 
me ; and the judge who rejected the constitutional view expressed in these resolutions, by refusing 
to discharge Mr. Vallandigham on habeas corpus, is a democrat of better days than these, having re- 
ceived his judicial mantle at the hands of President Jackson. And still more, of all those demo- 
crats who are nobly exposing their lives and shedding their blood on the battle-field, I have learned 
that many approve the course taken with Mr. Vallandigham, while I have not heard of a single one 
condemning it. I cannot assert that there are none such. And the name of President Jackson 
recalls an instance of pertinent history. After the battle of New Orleans, and while the fact that 
the treaty of peace had been concluded was well known in the city, but before official knowledge 
of it had arrived. General Jackson still maintained martial or military law. Now that it could be 
said the war was over, the clamor against martial law, which had existed from the first, grew more 
furious. Among other things a Mr. Louaillier published a denunciatory newspaper article. Gen. 
Jackson arrested him. A lawyer by the name of Morel procured the United States Judge Hall to 
order a writ of habeas corpus to relieve Mr. Louaillier. Gen. Jackson arrested both the lawyer and 
the judge. A Mr. Hollander ventured to say of some part of the matter that ' it was a dirty trick.' 
Gen. Jackson arrested him. When the officer undertook to serve the writ of habeas corpus, (ien. 
Jackson took it from him, and sent him away with a copy. Holding the judge in custody a few 
days, the General sent him beyond the limits of his encampment, and set him at liberty, with an 
order to remain till the ratification of peace should be regularly announced, or until the British 
should have left the Southern coast. A day or two more elapsed, the ratification of the treaty of 
peace was regularly announced, and the judge and others were fully liberated. A few days more, 
and the judge called Gen. Jackson into court and fined him a thousand dollars for having arrested 
him and the others named. The General paid the fine, and there the matter rested for nearly thirty 
years, when Congress refunded principal and interest. The late Senator Douglas, then in the House 
of Representatives, took a leading part in the debates, in which the constitutional question was 
much discussed. I am not prepared to say whom the journals would show to have voted for the 
measure. 

" It may be remarked, first, that we had the same Constitution then as now ; secondly, that we 
then had a case of invasion, and now we have a case of rebellion ; and thirdly, that the permanent 
right of the people to public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the trial by jury, the 
law of evidence, and the habeas corpus, suffered no detriment whatever by that conduct of Gen. 
Jackson, or its subsequent approval by the American Congress. 

" And yet, let me say that, in my own discretion, I do not know whether I would have ordered 
the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. While I cannot shift the responsibility from myself, I hold that, 
as a general rule, the commander in the field is the better judge of the necessity in any particular 
case. Of course, I must practise a general directory and revisory power in the matter. 

" One of the resolutions expresses the opinion of the meeting that arbitrary arrests will have 
tl e efl'ect to divide and distract those who should be united in suppressing the rebellion, and I am 
Bpecifically called on to discharge Mr. Vallandigham. I regard this as, at least, a fair appeal to n:>e 
on the expediency of exercising a constitutional power which I think exists. In response to such 
appea. I have to say, it gave me pain when I learned that Mr. Vallandigham had been arrested— 
that is, I was pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him — and that it 
will afford me great pleasure to discharge him so soon as I can, by any means, believe the pubhc 
safety will not suffer by it. I further say that, as the war progresses, it appears to me, opinion and 



472 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ao-ainst tlie war." But these protests were within narrow limits ; they 
effected nothing ; they were absolutely worthless. The savage wit of 

action which were in great confusion at first, take shape and fall into more regular channels, st 
that the necessity for strong dealing with them gradually decreases. I have every reason to desire 
Uiat it should cease altogether, and far from the least is my regard for the opinions and wishes ol 
those who, like the meeting at Albany, declare their purpose to sustain the Government iu every 
constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion. Still I must continue to do so much 
as may seem to be required by the pubhc safety. A. Lincoln." 



REPLY OF THE ALBANY DEMOCRACY. 

" To His Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States : 

" Sir : Your answer, which has appeared in the public prints, to the resolutions adopted at a 
recent meeting in the city of Albany affirming the personal rights and liberties of the citizens of 
this country, has been referred to the undersigned, the committee who prepared and reported those 
resolutions. The subject will now receive from us some further attention, which your answer seems 
to justify, if not to invite. We hope not to appear wanting in the respect due to your high posi- 
tion if we reply with a freedom and earnestness suggested by the infinite gravity and importance 
of the questions upon which you have thought proper to take issue at the bar of public opinion. 

" You seem to be aware that the Constitution of the United States, which you have sworn to 
protect and defend, contains the following guarantees, to which we again ask your attention : First 
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. Second. The right 
of the people to be secure iu their persons against unreasonable seizures shall not be violated, and 
no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath. Third. No person, except sol- 
diers and mariners in the service of the Govermnent, shall be held to answer for a capital or infa- 
mous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury, nor shall any person be deprived 
of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Fourth. In all criminal prosecutions the 
accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State or district 
in which the crime shall have been committed, and to be confronted with the witnesses against him. 

" You are also, no doubt, aware that on the adoption of the Constitution these invaluable provi- 
sions were proposed by the jealous caution of the States, and were inserted as amendments for a 
perpetual assurance of liberty against the encroachments of power. From your earliest reading of 
history, you also know that the great principles of liberty and law which underlie these provisions 
were derived to us from the British Constitution. In that country they were secured by magna 
charta more than six hundred years ago, and they have been confirmed by many and repeated 
statutes of the realm. A single palpable violation of them in England would not only arouse the 
public indignation, but would endanger the throne itself. For a persistent disregard of thera, 
Charles the First was dethroned and beheaded by his rebellious subjects. 

" The fact has already passed into history that the sacred rights and immunities which were 
designed to be protected by these constitutional guarantees have not been preserved to the people 
during your administration. In violation of the first of them, the freedom of the press has been 
denied. In repeated instances newspapers have been suppressed in the loyal States because they 
criticised, as constitutionally they might, those fatal errours of policy which have characterized the 
conduct of pubUc affairs since your advent to power. In violation of the second of them, hundreds, 
and we believe thousands, of men have been seized and immured in prisons and bastiles, not only 
without warrant upon probable cause, but without any warrant, and for no other cause than a con- 
stitutional exercise of the freedom of speech. In violation of all these guarantees, a distinguished 
citizen of a peaceful and loyal State has been torn from his home at midnight by a band of soldiers, 
acting under the order of one of your generals, tried before a miUtary commission, without judge or 
jury, convicted and sentenced without even the suggestion of any offence known to the Constitution 



DEMOCRATIC PROTESTS. 473 

John Mitchel in Richmond had this reply in one of its jonrnals : " This 
would sound very well if the said ' declaring for peace ' could have any 

or laws of this country. For all these acts you avow youi'self ultimately responsible. In the spe- 
cial case of Mr. Vallandigham, the injustice commenced by your subordinate was consummated by 
a sentence of exile from his home pronounced by you. That great wrong, more than any other 
which preceded it, asserts the principles of a supreme despotism. 

" These repeated and continued invasions of constitutional liberty and private right have occa* 
sioned profound anxiety in tlie public mind. The apprehension and alarm which they are calcu- 
lated to produce have been greatly enhanced by your attempt to justify them. Because in that 
attempt you assume to yourself a rightful authority possessed by no constitutional monarch on 
earth. We accept the declaration that you prefer to exercise this authority with a moderation not 
hitherto exhibited. But, believing as we do that your forbearance is not the tenure by which 
liberty is enjoyed in this country, we propose to challenge the grounds on which your claims of 
supreme power are based. While yielding to you, as a constitutional magistrate, the deference to 
which you are entitled, we cannot accord to you the despotic power you claim, however indulgent 
and gracious you may promise to be in wielding it. 

" We have carefully considered the grounds on which your pretensions to more than legal 
authority are claimed to rest ; and if we do not misinterpret the misty and cloudy forms of expres- 
sion in which those pretensions are set forth, your meaning is, that while the rights of the citizen 
are protected by the Constitution in time of peace, they are suspended or lost in time of war, when 
invasion or rebellion exists. You do not, like many others in whose minds reason and the love of 
regulated liberty seem to be overthrown by the excitements of the hour, attempt to base this con- 
clusion upon a supposed military necessity existing outside of and transcending the Constitution, 
a military necessity behind which the Constitution itself disappears in a total eclipse. We do not 
find this gigantic and monstrous heresy put forth in your plea for absolute power, but we do 
find another equally subversive of liberty and law, and quite as certainly tending to the establisli- 
ment of despotism. You claim to have found, not outside but within the Constitution, a principle 
or germ of arbitrary power, which in time of war expands at once into an absolute sovereignty, 
wielded by one man, so that liberty perishes, or is dependent on his will, his discretion, or his caprice. 
This extraordinary doctrine you claim to derive wholly from that clause of the Constitution which, 
in case of invasion or rebellion, permits the writ of habeas corpus to be suspended. Upon this 
ground your whole argument is based. 

" You must permit us to say to you, with all due respect, but with the earnestness demanded by 
the occasion, that the American people will never acquiesce in this doctrine. In their opinion the 
guarantees of' the Constitution which secure to them freedom of speech and of the press, immunity 
from arrest for offences unknown to the laws of the land, and the right of trial by jury before the 
tribunals provided by those laws, instead of military commissions and drum-head courts-martial, are 
living and vital principles in peace and in war, at all times and under all circumstances. No sophis- 
try or argument can shake this conviction, nor will the people require its confirmation by logical 
sequences and deductions. It is a conviction deeply interwoven with the instincts, the habits, and 
the education of our countrymen. The right to form opinions upon public measures and men, and 
to declare those opinions by speech or writing, with the utmost latitude of expression, the right of 
personal liberty, unless forfeited according to established laws and for offences previously defined by 
law, the right when accused of crime to be tried where law is administered, and punishment is pro- 
nounced only when the crime is legally ascertained ; all these are rights instantly perceived without 
argument or proof. No refinement of logic can unsettle them in the minds of freemen ; no power 
cac annihilate them ; and no force at the command of any chief magistrate can compel their sur- 
render, 

" So far as it is possible for us to understand, from your language, the mental process which has 
led you to the alarming conclusions indicated by your communication, it is this : The habeas corpus 
is a remedial writ, issued by courts and magistrates to inquire into the cause of any imprisonment 
3r restraint of liberty, on the return of which and upon due examination the person imprisoned ia 



474 THE LOST CAUSE. 

effect whatever in bringing about peace. If a man in falling from a tower 
could arrest his fall by declaring against it, then the declarations of Demo- 

dischargod if the restraint is unlawful, or admitted to bail if he appears to have been lawfully 
arrested, and is held to answer a criminal accusation. Inasmuch as this process may be suspended 
in time of war, you seem to think that every remedy for a false and unlawful imprisonment is abr> 
gated ; and from this postulate you reach, at a single bound, the conclusion that there is no liberty 
under the Constitution which does not depend on the gracious indulgence of the Executive only. 
This great heresy once established, and by this mode of induction there springs at once into exist- 
ence a brood of crimes or offences undefined by any rule, and hitherto unknown to the laws of this 
country ; and this is followed by indiscriminate arrests, midnight seizures, military commissions, 
unheard-of modes of trial and punishment, and all the machinery of terror and despotism. Your 
language does not permit us to doubt as to your essential meaning, for you tell us, that ' arrests are 
made not so much for what has been done, as for what probably would be done.' And, again : 
' The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his government is discussed, cannot 
be misunderstood. If not hindered (of course by arrest) he is sure to help the enemy, and much 
more if he talks ambiguously, talks for his country with " buts " and " ifs " and " ands." ' You 
also tell us that the arrests complained of have not been made ' for the treason defined in the Con- 
stitution,' nor ' for any capital or otherwise infamous crimes, nor were the proceedings following in 
any constitutional or legal sense criminal prosecutions." The very ground, then, of your justifica- 
tion is, that the victims of arbitrary arrest were obedient to every law, were guiltless of any known 
and defined offence, and therefore were without the protection of the Constitution. The suspension 
of the writ oi liabeas corpus, instead of being intended to prevent the enlargement of arrested crim- 
inals until a legal trial and conviction can be had, is designed, according to your doctrine, to sub- 
ject innocent men to your supreme will and pleasure. Silence itself is punishable, according to this 
extraordinary theory, and still more so the expression of opinions, however loyal, if attended with 
criticism upon the policy of the government. We must respectfully refuse our assent to this theory 
of constitutional law. We think that men may be rightfully silent if they so choose, while clam- 
orous and needy patriots proclaim the praises of those who wield power ; and as to the ' buts,' tlKS 
' ifs,' and the ' ands,' these are Saxon words and belong to the vocabulary of freemen. 

" We have already said that the intuition of a free people instantly rejects these dangerous and 
unheard-of doctrines. It is not our purpo.se to enter upon an elaborate and extended refutation of 
them. We submit to you, however, one or two considerations, in the hope that you will review the 
subject with the earnest attention which its supreme importance demands. We say, then, we are 
not aware that the writ of habeas corpus is now suspended in any of the peaceful and loyal States 
of the Union. An act of Congress approved by you on the third of March, 18G3, authorized the 
President to suspend it during the pre^^ent rebellion. That the suspension is a legislative and not an 
executive act, has been held in every judicial decision ever made in this country, and we think it 
cannot be delegated to any other branch of the government. But passing over that consideration, 
you have not exercised the power wliieh Congress attempted to confer upon you, and the writ is not 
suspended in any part of the country where the civil laws are in force. Now, inasmuch as your 
doctrine of the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of innocent men, in admitted violation of express 
constitutional guarantees, is wholly derived from a suspension of the habeas corpus, the first step to 
be taken in the ascent to absolute power, ought to be to make it known to the people that the writ 
is in fact suspended, to the end that they may know what is their condition. You have not yet 
exercised this power, and therefore, according to your own constitutional thesis, your conclusion falls 
to the ground. It is one of the provisions of the Constitution, and of the very highest value, that 
no ex post facto law shall be passed, the meaning of which is, that no act which is not against the 
law when committed can be made criminal by subsequent legislation. But your claim is, that when 
tlie writ of habeas corpus is suspended, you may lawfully imprison and punish for the crimes of 
Bileuce, of speech, and opinion. But as these are not oflfences against the known and established 
law of the land, the constitutional principle to which we now refer plainly requires that you shcv.ld, 
bo^'-re taking cognizance of such oflfences, make known the rule of action, in order that the pocp le 



DEMOCRATIC PROTESTS. 475 

crats against the war miglit be of some avail. As it is, tliey resemble that 
emphatic ijronoimcement of Mr. "Wasliington Hunt : ' Let it be jn-oclainied 

may be advised in due season, so as not to become liable to its penalties. Let us turn your at* 
tentiou to the most glaring and indefensible of all the assaults upon constitutional liberty, which 
have marked the history of your administration. No one has ever pretended that tlie writ of habeas 
corpus was suspended in the State of Ohio, where the arrest of a citizen at midnight, already re- 
ferred to, was made, and he placed before a court-martial for trial and sentence, upon charges and 
Bpecifications which admitted liis innocence according to the existing laws of this country. Upon 
your own doctrine, then, can you hesitate to redress that monstrous wrong ? 

" But, sir, we cannot acquiesce in your dogmas that arrests and imprisonment, without warrant 
or criminal accusation, in their nature lawless and arbitrary, opposed to the very letter of constitu- 
tional guarantees, can become in any sense rightful, by reason of a suspen.siou of the writ of habeas 
corpus. We deny that the suspension of a single and peculiar remedy for such wrongs brings into 
existence new and unknown classes of ofifences, or new causes for depriving men of their liberty. 
It is one of the most material purposes of that writ to enlarge upon bail persons who, upon prob- 
able cause, are duly and illegally charged with some known crime, and a suspension of the writ was 
never asked for in England or in tliis country, except to prevent such enlargement wlieu the sup- 
posed oQence was against the safety of the government. In the year 1807, at the time of Burr's 
alleged conspiracy, a bill was passed in tlie Senate of the United States, suspending the writ of 
habeas corpus for a limited time in all cases where persons were charged on oath with treason, or 
other high crime or misdemeanor, endangering the peace or safety of the government. But your 
doctrine undisguisedly is, that a suspension of this writ justifies arrests witliout warrant, without 
oath, and even without suspicion of treason or other crime. Your doctrine denies the freedom of 
speech and of the press. It invades the sacred domain of opinion and discussion. It denounces 
the ' ifs ' and the ' buts ' of the English language, and even the refuge of silence is insecure. 

" We repeat, a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus merely dispenses with a single and pecu- 
liar remedy against an unlawful imprisonment ; but if that remedy had never existed, the right to 
liberty would be the same, and every invasion of that right would be condemned not only by the 
Constitution, but by principles of far greater antiquity than the writ itself. Our common law is not 
at all indebted to this writ for its action of false imprisonment, and the action would remain to the 
citizen, if the writ were abolished forever. Again, every man, when his life or liberty is threatened 
without the warrant of law, may lawfully resist, and if necessary in self-defence, may take the life 
of the aggressor. Moreover, the people of this country may demand the impeachment of the Presi- 
dent himself for the exercise of arbitrary power. And when iiU these remedies shall prove inade- 
quate for the protection of free institutions, there remains, in the last resort, tlie supreme right of 
revolution. You once announced this right with a latitude of expression which may well be con- 
sidered dangerous in the present crisis of our national history. You said : ' Any peojtle, anywhere, 
being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing govern- 
ment, and form a new one that suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases where the 
people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can 
may revolutionize and make their own of so much of their territory as they inhabit. More than 
this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority inter- 
mingled with or near about tliem, who may oppose their movements.' (Vol. 10, L'ongressioiial 
Globe, p. 94.) Such were your opinions, and you iiad a constitutional right to declare them. If a 
citizen now should utter sentiments far less dangerous in their tendency, your nearest military com- 
jiander would consign him to a dungeon or to the tender mercies of a court-martial, and you would 
approve tiie proceeding. 

" In our deliberate judgment the Constitution is not open to the new interpretation suggested by 
your communication now before us. We think every part of that instrument is harmonious and 
consistent. The possible suspension of the writ of habeas corpus is consistent with freedom of 
speech and of the press. The suspension of that remedial process may prevent the enlargement of 
>he accused traitor or conspirator until he shall be legally tried and convicted or acquitted ; but in 



476 THE LOST CAUSE. 

upon the lionse-tops that no citizen of New York shall be arrested without 
process of law.' There is no use in bawling from the house-tops what 

tlii3 \vi> find no justification for arrest and imprisonment without warrant, without cause, without the 
accusation or suspicion of crime. It seems to us, moreover, too plain for argument, that the sacred 
right of trial by jury, and in courts where the law of the land is the rule of decision is a right 
which is never dormant, never suspended, in peaceful and loyal communities and States. Will you^ 
Mr. President, maintain, that because the writ of habeas corpus may be in suspense, you can substi- 
tute soldiers and bayonets for the peaceful operation of the laws ; military commissions, and inquis- 
itorial modes of trial for the courts and juries prescribed by the Constitution itself? And if you 
cannot maintain this, then let us ask where is the justification for the monstrous proceeding in the 
case of a citizen of Ohio, to which we have called your attention ? We know that a recreant judge, 
whose name has already descended to merited contempt, found the apology on the outside of the 
supreme and fundamental law of the Constitution. But this is not the foundation on which your 
superstructure of power is built. We have mentioned the act of the last Congress professing to 
authorize a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. This act now demands your special attention, 
because if we are not greatly in error, its terms and plain intention are directly opposed to all the 
arguments and conclusions of your communication. That act, besides providing that the habeas 
corpus may be suspended, expressly commanded that the names of all persons theretofore or thereafter 
arrested by authority of the President, or his cabinet ministers, being citizens of States in which the 
administration of the laws has continued unimpaired, shall be returned to the courts of the United 
States for the districts in which such persons reside, or in which their supposed offences were con> 
mitted ; and such return being made, if the next grand jury attending the courts does not indict the 
alleged offenders, then the judges are commanded to issue an order for their immediate discharge 
from imprisonment. Now, we cannot help asking whether you have overlooked this law, which 
nost assuredly you are bound to observe, or whether it be your intention to disregard it ? Its 
meaning certainly cannot be mistaken. By it the national Legislature has said that the President 
may suspend the accustomed writ of habeas corpus, but at the same time it has commanded that all 
arrests under his authority shall be promptly made known to the courts of justice, and that the 
accused parties shall be liberated, unless presented by a grand jury according to the Constitution, 
and tried by a jury in the ancient and accustomed mode. The President may possibly, so far as 
Congress can give the right, arrest without legal cause or warrant. We certainly deny that Con- 
gress can confer this right, because it is forbidden by the higher law of the Constitution. But, 
waiving that consideration, this statute, by its very terms, promptly removes the proceeding in every 
case into the courts where the safeguards of liberty are observed, and where the persons detained 
are to be discharged, miless indicted for criminal offences against the established and ascertained 
laws of the country. 

" Upon what foundation, then, permit us to ask, do you rest the pretension that men who are 
not accused of crime may be seized and imprisoned, or banished at the will and pleasure of tlie Presi- 
dent or any of his subordinates in civil and military positions ? Where is the warrant for invading 
the freedom of speech and of the press? Where the justification for placing the citizen on trial 
without the presentment of a grand jury and before military commissions ? There is no power in 
this country which can dispense with its laws. The President is as much bound by them as the 
humblest individual. We pray you to bear in mind, in order that you may duly estimate the feel- 
ing of the people on this subject, that for the crime of dispensing with the laws and statutes of 
Great Britain, our ancestors brought one monarch to tlie scaffold, and expelled another from his 
throne. 

" This power, which you have erected in theory, is of vast and illimitable proportions. If we 
may trust you to exercise it mercifully and leniently, your successor, whether immediate or more 
remote, may wield it with the energy of a Caesai or Napoleon, and with the will of a despot and a 
tyi-ant. It is a power without boundary or limit, because it proceeds upon a total suspension of ail 
the constitutional and legal safeguards which protect the rights of a citizen. It is a power not 
inaptly described in the language of one of your secretaries. Said Mr. Seward to the British minis* 



DEMOCEATIC PROTESTS. < 77 

everybody knows to be nonsense. * * * Demand, quotha 1 Tlio 
starling that Mr. Sterne saw in tlie cage said only ' 1 can't get ovi-.' It 

ter in Washington : ' I can touch a bell on my right hand and order the arrest of a citizer* of Ohio. 
I 3an touch the bell again and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York, and no power on 
earth but that of the President can release them. Can the Queen of England, in her doininions, do 
as much ? ' This is the very language of a perfect despotism, and we learn from you witn profound 
ejnotion that this is no idle boast. It is a despotism unlimited in principle, because the same arbitrary 
and unrestrained will or discretion which can place men under illegal restraint, or banisn them, can 
apply the rack or the thumbscrew, can put to torture or to death. Not thus have the people of this 
country hither understood their Constitution. No argument can commend to their judgment such 
interpretations of the great charter of their liberties. Quick as the lightning's flash, the intuitive 
sense of freemen perceives the sophistry aud rejects the conclusion. 

" Some other matters, which your Excellency has presented, demand our notice. 

" In justification of your course as to Mr. Vallandigham, you have referred to the arrest of 
Judge Hall at New Orleans, by order of Gen. Jackson ; but that case differs widely from the 
case of Mr. Vallandigham. New Orleans was then, as you truly state, under ' martial or mihtary 
law.' This was not so in Ohio, where Mr. Vallandigham was arrested. The administration of the 
civil law had not been disturbed in that commonwealth. The courts were open, and justice was 
dispensed with its accustomed promptitude. In the case of Judge IlaH, Gen. Jackson in a few 
days sent him outside the line of his encampments, and set him at liberty ; but you have under- 
taken to banish Mr. Vallandigham from his home. You seem also to have forgotten that Gon. Jack- 
son submitted implicitly to the judgment of the court which imposed the fine upon hhn : that he 
promptly paid it ; that he enjoined his friends to assent, ' as he most freely did, to the decision 
which had just been pronounced against him.' 

"More than this, you overlook the fact that the then administration (in the language of a well- 
known author) ' mildly but decidedly rebuked the proceedings of General Jackson," and that the 
president viewed the subject with ' surprise and sohcitude.' Unlike President Madison, you in a 
case much more unwarranted, approve the proceedings of your subordinate officer, and in addition 
justify your course by a carefully considered argument in its support. 

" It is true that after some thirty years, Congress, in consideration of the devoted and patriotic 
services of Gen. Jackson, refunded the amount of the fine he had paid ! But the long delay in 
doing this, proved how reluctant the American people were to do anything which could be consid- 
ered as in any way approving the disregard shown to the majesty of the law, even by one who so 
eminently enjoyed their confidence and regard. 

" One subject more, and we shall conclude. You express your regret that our meeting spoke 
• as Democrats ; ' and you say that ' in this time of national peril you would have preferred to meet 
us upon a level one step higher than any party platform.' You thus compel us to allude to matters 
which we should have preferred to pass by. But we cannot omit to notice your criticism, as it casts, 
at least, an implied reproach upon our motives and our proceedings. We beg to remind you that 
when the hour of our country's peril had come, when it was evident that a most gigantic effort was 
to be made to subvert our institutions and to overthrow the government, when it was vitally impor- 
tant that party feelings should be laid aside, and that all should be called upon to unite most cor- 
dially and vigorously to maintain the Union ; at the time you were sworn into office as President 
of the United States, when you should have urged your fellow-citizens in the most emphatic man- 
ner to overlook all past differences and to rally in defence of their country and its institutions when 
you should have enjoined respect for the laws and the Constitution, so clearly disregarded by the 
South, you chose, for the first time, under like circumstances, in the history of our country, to set 
op a party platform, called the ' Chicago platform,' as your creed ; to advance it beyond the Consti- 
tution, and to speak disparagingly of that great conservative tribunal of our country, so highly 
respected by all thinking men who have inquired into our institutions — The Supreme Court of tab 
United States. 

" Your administration baa been true to the principles you then laid down. Notwithstanding 



4:78 THE LOST CAUSE. 

would have been more ' manly ' to scream — ' I demand to get out ; I pro* 
claim on the house-tops that I will get out.' " 

While thus " the strong government " at Washington had grasped tho 
liberties of the country, it promised a fresh infusion of vigour in the war. 
It increased its army ; it exhibited, as its strength on the water, a navy of 
nearly six hundred vessels, seventy-five of which were iron-clads or 
armoured steamers ; and it jnade preparations for the prosecution of hos- 
tilities which were alarming enough by the side of the now rapidly 
decreasing resources of the Southern Confederacy. The Congress which 
assembled at Richmond in the winter of 1863, was immediately and 
anxiously occupied with the decrease of our armies, and the yet more 
alarming diminution of our subsistence. These two concerns engaged all 
the resources and ingenuity of its legislation. It was said that the war 
had become a question of men and of food. 

The conscription law had disappointed expectation. When the first 
measure was passed, limited to the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, it was 
estimated that even that partial call would yield eight hundred thousand 
men. A very simple arithmetical process will disclose this number. The 
free population of the several States of the Confederacy not wholly occu- 
pied by the enemy was at the time of the passage of the first act of 



the fact that several hundred thousand Democrats in the loyal States cheerfully responded to the 
call of their country, filled the ranks of its armies, and by ' their strong hands and willing arms ' 
aided to maintain your Excellency and the officers of government in the possession of our national 
capital ; notwithstanding the fact that the great body of the Democrats of the country have in the 
most patriotic spirit given their best efforts, their treasure, their brothers and their sons, to sustain 
the government and to put down the rebellion, you, choosing to overlook all this, Jiave made your 
appointments to civil office, from your cabinet officers and foreiga ministers down to the persons of 
lowest official grade among the tens of thousands engaged in collecting the revenues of the country, 
exclusively from your poUtical associates. 

" Under such circumstances, virtually proscribed by your administration, and while most of the 
leading journals which supported it approved the sentence pronounced against Mr. Vallandigham, it 
was our true course — our honest course to meet as ' Democrats,' that neither your Excellency nor 
the country might mistake our antecedents or our position. 

" In closing this communication, we desire to reaffirm our determination, and we doubt not that 
of every one who attended the meeting which adopted the resolutions we have discussed, expressed 
in one of those resolutions, to devote ' all our energies to sustain the cause of the Union.' 

" Permit us, then, in this spirit, to ask your Excellency to reexamine the grave subjects we have 
considered, to the end that on your retirement from the high position you occupy, you may leave 
behind you no doctrines and no further precedents of despotic power to prevent you and your poa- 
terity from enjoying that constitutional liberty which is the inheritance of us nil, and to the end, 
also, that historv rr-ay speak of your administration with indulgence if it cannot with approval. 

" We are, sir, with great respect, yours very truly, 

" John V. L. Prutk, 

" Chairman of Committee. 
" Albany, June 30, 1863." 



THE CONFEDERATE CONSCRIPTION. 4:Y9 

conscription (1862) as follows, giving only fractions of the population for 
tliose States partially overrun by the enemy : 



Alabama, .... 529,164 

Arkansas, 324,323 

Florida, 78,686 

Georgia, 595,097 

Louisian.i, ' 376,913 

Mississippi, 354,699 

North Carolina, 661,586 

A fourth of Missouri, 264,588 

South Carolina, 301 ,271 

Two thirds of Tennessee, 556,042 

Texas, 420,651 

Half of Virginia, 552,591 

Total, 5,015,618 



This being the aggregate population, what proportion of it were males 
between the ages of eighteen and thirty -five ? By the census of 1850, the 
population of the United States was twenty-three millions one hundred 
and ninety-one thousand eight hundred and seventy-six. Of this total, 
seven millions forty-seven thousand nine hundred and forty-live were 
given as between the ages in question. Half this number would give 
three milliong live hundred and twenty-three thousand nine hundred and 
seventy-two as the males between those ages ; which number is fifteen 
per cent, of the aggregate population. This ratio applied to the white 
population of the Confederacy, as stated above, would give as the number 
that should have been produced by the first act of conscription seven hun- 
dred and fifty-two thousand three hundred and forty-two men. If we 
should add to this number the volunteers from that population of the 
States of Kentucky, Maryland, and portions of Virginia and Missouri not 
embraced in the basis of estimate, and the volunteers offering from ages 
not embraced in tlie prescribed figures, the aggregate soldiery of the Con- 
federacy would reach tlie number of eight hundred thousand. 

The conscription law of the Confederacy had since been extended to the 
age of forty-five ; and in 18G3 it was further extended, by the repeal of tlie 
clause allov/ing substitutions, which it was declared would add more than 
Beventy thousand men to the ai-my. And yet about this time the rolls of 
the Adjutant-General's office in Richmond showed little more than four 
hundred thousand men under arms ; and of these, Mr, Seddon, the Con- 
federate Secretary of War, declared that, owing to desertions and other 
causes, " not more than a half, never two-thirds of the soldiers were in the 
ranks." When we contemplate the actual result to which the conscription 



480 THE LOST CACSE. 

was tliiio reduced, we may imagine how liarsli had bef,ome the war, and 
how averse the people of the South to the demands of '!ts necessities. In- 
deed, the Confederate Government had committed a great oversight in fail- 
ijUT to enlist trooj^s for the whole period of the w/ir, when it lirst com- 
menced ; for, as is usual at the beginning of all political revolutions, great 
uuanimitj and patriotic zeal prevailed among the people throughout the 
countrv, which rendered that measure both feasible and easy. But lost 
opportunities seldom return. This important measure, so easy at the out- 
set of the war, was quite impossible in its adv.'inced stages, as the ardour 
of the people was cooled or abated by the hardships and vicissitudes insep- 
arable from a state of hostility. 

The most striking of these hardships was the want of food, the actual 
pang of starvation in the army. Provisions were very scarce all through 
the country, so much so as to excite fears of a famine. Poverty and its 
attendant necessities befell those who had never dreamed of want. Many 
families who had been reared in affluence and luxury, were in need of the 
common necessaries of life. Young, delicate ladies often had to perform 
menial offices, such as cooking and washing for their families, having lost 
their servants by the war, or having been driven by other necessities to 
the last resources of economy. In the army the suffering was more vital ; 
and had it not been for the scanty additions of provisions and clothing, 
which the love of relatives and friends occasionally sent them, many of 
the troops would have been compelled to disband, or would have perished 
in their camps. As it was, desertions were rapidly taking place, as the 
rigour of winter came on. It required all the popularity of Gen. Lee, and 
the exercise of every available faculty of his mind, to keep even his veteran 
army in Virginia together. A tithe-tax was instituted by the Confederate 
Congress, by which it was hoped to furnish supplies to the armies ; but 
this and all kindred measures on the subject of subsistence were so badly 
executed, that the results invariably disappointed the calculation. 

Indeed, the subject of the Confederate commissariat was so closely con- 
nected with the general fortunes of the war ; it did so much to determine 
its conclusion ; it exhibits so many characteristic instances of mal-adminis- 
tration in Richmond, that a distinct consideration of it here, up to the time 
we are now discussing, is not out of place, and will prepare the reader for 
much that is to follow in the general history of the war. 



HISTOKT OF THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSARIAT. 

In January, 1863, a report was made to the Confederate Congress in 
Richmond, on the general administration of the Bureau of Subsistence, 
particularly with reference to certain contracts for obtaining supplies, 



THE OONFEDEEATE COMMISSARIAT. 481 

which had been unfavourably reported to the public and to Congress. In 
that report, the following occurs : " In the packing season of 1S60-'G1 up- 
ward of three million head of hogs were packed at the various porkerics 
ot the United States, besides those packed by farmers at home, of whici:. 
less than twenty thousand were packed at regular establishments south of 
the lines of our armies. Of this whole number, experts estimate that the 
product of about one mull on two hundred thousand hogs was imported in 
the early part of the last year from beyond our present lines into what is 
now the Southern Confederacy. This was accomplished, and to the extent 
of a bountiful supply by the action of the State authorities in some cases, 
by the enterprise of private parties, and by this department, through agen- 
cies of its own. Of this number it is estimated that about three hundred 
thousand hogs, or their bacon equivalent, have been consumed by our 
State and Confederate armies since the commencement of hostilities. Ten- 
nessee then became the main reliance for the future use of the army, 
which, together with the accessible portions of Kentucky, had been so rav- 
aged by hog cholera and injured by short corn crops for three years pre- 
ceding the year just closed, that the number slaughtered at the porkeries 
within her limits had deviated from two hundred thousand head to less 
than twenty thousand. It was into this field, just recovering from these 
disasters, and almost the sole resource of the army, and the planters and 
inhabitants of cities, that this department had to enter as a pm-chaser, 
dubious of a sufiiciency, but assured of a heavy and active compe- 
tition." 

Shortly after the date of this report, the successive captures of Forts 
Henry and Donelson caused the loss of a considerable portion of the sup- 
plies referred to. The subsequent campaign lost us Kentucky and much 
of Tennessee, and left the Confederacy comparatively bare of meat. 

In tliis early prospect of distress a number of propositions were made to 
the Confederate Government by responsible and energetic parties, to ex- 
change through the enemy's lines meat for cotton. But to this favourable 
exchange President Davis was opposed ; he was actually weak enough to 
suppose that if a little cotton was kept from the enemy, the l^^orth would 
be unable to pay the January interest of 1863 ; and he was among those 
stupid financiers who were for confining cotton, as if there were magical sal- 
vation in it, and hoarding this inert wealth of the South. 

In the fall of 1862, a party properly vouched for proposed, for an equiv- 
alent in cotton, to deliver thirty thousand hogsheads of bacon through the 
lines. It was alleged that there was enough cotton to feed and clothe our 
army, in a section tributary to Memphis, which city was then, and had 
been for some time previous, in the secure possession of the enemy ; that 
such cotton must otherwise probably be destroyed to prevent its falling 
into the hands of the enemy ; but that the owners, as a general rule, 
SI 



482 THE LOST CACi&» 

though willing to let the government have their crops, "were averse, if not 
stubbornly opposed to having them destroyed. 

This proposition was submitted to President Davis. It was emlorsed 
111 the bureau of subsistence : " The alternative is thus presented of violat- 
ing our policy of withholding cotton from the enemy or risking the starva- 
tion of our armies ; " and it was suggested that the Commissary General be 
authorized to contract for bacon and salt, limiting the amount of purchase 
to what was absolutely necessary to feed the army and supply it with blank- 
ets and shoes, showing that no law forbade this traffic ; that the precedents 
of other wars justified it ; and advising that the Commissary General 
should, under such circumstances, upon his own statement of the necessity, 
be allowed to make the contract, which, this officer added, nothing less 
tihan the danger of sacrificing our armies would induce " him to acquiesce 
in." Upon that letter the President endorsed as follows : 

" SecPwEtaet op "War — Is there any necessity for immediate action ? Is there satis- 
factory evidence that the present opportunity is the last which will be offered ? Have 
you noted the scheme of the enemy for the payment of their next accruing interest on 
their public debt ? You will not fail to perceive the effect of postponing the proposed 
action until January 1, 1863, if it be necessary at anytime to depart from the well-defined 
policy of oup government in relation to cotton. 

"JEFF. DAVIS. 

"October 31, 18G2." 

President Davis was assured that the consequences of the refusal of this 
policy of exchange would be most serious. Col. ISTorthrop, the Commis- 
sary General, informed him that present efforts, even if successful, would 
not produce cm'ed bacon for the next year. The departments of the east 
had been exhausted, while the increasing number of refugees, driven from 
their homes by the enemy's arms, added to the consumers. The results 
hoped for from Tennessee were not probably equal to the demands of the 
troops on the west of the mountains and in Tennessee. A statement was 
made in the bureau of subsistence, that the su2:)ply of hogs for 1863 would 
be about one hundred thousand short of the supply for the preceding year, 
and that the supply of beef was well nigh exhausted. This statement was 
communicated to President Davis, with the following endorsement by Mr. 
Eandolph, then Secretary of "War : " Unless the deficiency be made up by 
purchases beyond the limits of the Confederacy, I apprehend serious conse- 
quences." 

President Davis refused to see the necessity so plainly indicated to 
him. He still lingered in the conceit of an early termination of the war, 
and in spite of the plainest figures he persisted in the belief that the requi- 
site amount of supplies for the army might still be procured from sources 
within the Confederate States. How far he was mistaken in this, will be 



SUPPLIES OF MEAT IN THE CONFEDERACY. 483 

eliown by the following reply to one of liis calls for information about the 
close of the year 1862 : 

" It Avill be observed that the Presidcut, through Gen. Smith, calls for information on 
<]iree points, and to these exclusively is the answer addressed. 

" First — Every source within the Confederate lines from which supplies could have 
been obtained last year or this has been fully explored. All such have either been 
exhausted or found inadequate. If in any small portion of the Confederacy supplies 
have not been aimed at, it was because it was known that such portion would not afford 
enough for the current domestic supply of that particular area. It has been erroneouslj' 
supposed that Southern Georgia and Alabama, and certain portions of Florida, would 
afford large amounts of stock, but they have not done it. They have not even fully fed 
those posts which from geographical position would naturally draw from them, and they 
cannot do as much in the future as they have done in the past. 

" This appears abundantly from facts within my knowledge and from testimouy in 
this office. 

" Second — To state more fully the reasons for immediate action it is necessary to 
recapitulate : 

"The report states a clear deficit of bacon of 8,116,194 pounds, or twenty-five i>er 
cent. ; a clear deficit in salt beef of 36,000 beeves, at an average of five hundred pounds 
— making 18,000,000, or ninety per cent, per bullock. Whole value of the above, in 
rations, 22,516,194. Total deficit per cent., 43. 

" This calculation is upon the basis of the forces this year in camp and field. Fur- 
ther : it does not include immense supplies purchased from private hands, which cannot 
be had at all for this winter, because the stock to create them is not in the Confederate 
lines, and the salt cannot be had if the stock could. Besides, large local supplies have 
been completely exhausted, as in Loudon and Fauquier and other districts. And even 
the above estimated subsistence is not at all secure. The hogs, though bargained for, 
have not all been driven to places of safety. The salt to cure them has not all been 
secured, and what has been engaged has not all been delivered, and must take its chances 
for transportation over long distances, upon uncertain roads discordantly connected. 
It is not safe, then, to rely on these estimates. Added to that, the winter is at hand ; the 
rises of the rivers all impending ; invasion on a large scale is imminent ; the supplies 
which had been hoped for from the enemy's lines are not to be expected. 

" The supplies now ofli'ered are ample, and are tendered at lower rates in cotton, even 
at the extreme bid, than they can be bought at for Confederate currency in our own lines. 
If not availed of now they most probably never will be, for lack of power and oppor- 
tunity. 

" And, finally, both Mobile and Charleston are pressing for large supplies out of 
resources which must be held for the armies of Virginia, or the border States will be 
lost ; while the same reserves, and the accumulations I have been endeavouring to make 
in Tennessee, are demanded by the armies of General Bragg. 

" Third — As to the relative advantages of procuring supplies from Jfemphis and from 
the vicinity of New Orleans, the proposition to make sucli purchases is not a new idea. 
They were made at the commencement of the war to an extent which is little known. In 
an elaborate report on the operations of this Bureau, made by Major Euffin, under my 
order and superintendence, and submitted to Congress in January last, it is stated : Ex- 
perts estimate that the product of about 1,200,000 hogs was imported in the early part 
f'f last year (1861), from beyond our present lines into what is now the Southern Con- 
federacy. This was accomplished by the action of State authorities ; in some cases by 



484 THE LOST CATJSE. 

the enterprise of private parties, and by this department, through agencies of its own. 
Of this number it is estimated that about 300,000 hogs, in their bacon equivalent, have 
been consumed by our State and Confederate armies since the commencement of hostili- 
ties. This was for a period of eight months, and shows a requirement of 450,000 hogs 
per annum. For a considerable part of that i^eriod the army was a mere fraction of tlie 
magnitude which it has since reached. Those who think that the stimulus of high prices, 
under the apprehension of a great scarcity, has so increased our supply of meat as to 
enable us to dispense with this large balance, forget that the counties most capable of 
such development are precisely those which have suffered most from the war. Elsewhere 
it must have been a new enterprise, such as could not be expected to succeed when the 
best men were in the army. 

" Therefore I urge that supplies be engaged both from Memphis and from the vicinity 
of New Oi'Ieans, and for these additional reasons : It may be safely estimated that the 
army will consume and waste the product of not less than five hundred thousand hogs, 
of which we calculate to receive only about one third from our Confederate limits. I* 
will not be prudent to rely upon obtaining the amount needed from one single source of 
supply ; it will be well to divide the risk. Moreover, other articles are needed nearly aa 
much as meat. The salt works in Louisiana are not to be depended on ; the supply to 
be obtained from Saltville, in Virginia, is limited. The wants of citizens, daily becoming 
more urgent and alarming, will absorb aU of that, if permitted, and the drafts of the 
Government upon the same fund wUl cause ruinous prices and great destitution, 

" One reliable party in New Orleans offers to supply one hundred thousand sacks of 
gait, or more than is called for by the rapidly expiring contract at Saltville. Other arti- 
cles — such as coffee and flour — are also offered from New Orleans. The supply of flour 
from that quarter will enable the soldiers from the Southwest to use that in part as a 
bread ration instead of corn meal, which must otherwise be their sole reliance for bread 
Tiie reserve of coffee for the sick is being rapidly consumed. No other prospect of get- 
ting more presents itself, but the necessity of a sufficiency is important. The success of 
the enterprise is doubtful ; but the opportunity afforded by the venality of the enemy 
ought not to be lost. If we thereby obtain the use of the Mississippi from Memphis to 
New Orleans, until such time as the whole or a large part of the needed supplies shall 
have been obtained, it will be a great benefit. 

" Its effect upon the morale of the enemy, and the political results of such a policy, 
however important in themselves, are questions which, as they have not entered into my 
calculations, I do not discuss. My action proceeds entirely from a sense of the absolute 
necessity of these supplies to feed the army, and to subdue the want which has already 
manifested itself both in Gen. Lee's army and the Army of the "West, under the priva- 
tions to which they have been subjected. Eespectfully, 

"L. B. NORTHROP." 



No official reply was ever received to this communication. Indeed 
about this time President Davis left Richmond on a visit to Mississippi, 
and in a speech before the Legislature of that State pronounced the solemn 
opinion that the war would soon come to an end. For this reason and 
" on political principles " the policy of using cotton to get supplies through 
the lines, and taking advantage of the wide-spread venality of the enemy 
was negatived. The arguments against this trade were specious and 
triflinor. It was said that the Federal finances were in such a condition 



SUPPLIES THROUGH THE BLOCKADE. 485 

that if they could not obtain cotton, upon -which to draw bills where- 
with to pay their then accruing January interest, their credit would 
explode, and the war would speedily cease from the bankrupting of our 
assailants. Hence they wanted cotton. It was also asserted that they did 
not want cotton, but only sought, under cover of a contract for supply, to 
find out the channels of navigable streams, to ascertain the locatibn and 
condition of certain defences, and otherwise to spy out the land. A third 
argument was that the trade on the part of the government would demoralize 
the people amoug whom it might be conducted ; and the newspapers added 
that to trade through ISTew Orleans and let cotton clear from that port 
" would make Europe think \ve had caved, who thereupon would decline 
to recognize us or to intervene." Such were the fancies and punctilios 
which persuaded the Confederate Government to persist in a line of policy, 
the steady and inevitable tendency of which was to bring its armies to the 
verge of starvation. 

The project of getting supplies through the enemy's lines thus discour- 
aged, it was necessary for the Commissary General to cast about for a new 
resource ; and in 1863 the experiment was first attempted of obtaining sup- 
plies, especially meat and coffee, from foreign ports through the blockade. 
A scheme of contract was prepared on the basis of an association of indi- 
vidual entcrjDrise with government capital, which, it was thought, if prop- 
erly arranged, would combine the power and money of the one with the 
energy and skill of the other. Especially in a business as hazardous as 
blockade running would such an association, it was thought, be an advan- 
tage as securing to the individuals the insurance of many ventures, and to 
the government the vigilance and intelligence of private parties. It was 
contemplated that the private parties should sell the cotton and purchase 
the return cargo, charging two and a half per cent, commission on each 
transaction ; and that the government should purchase the cotton on this 
side at a commission of two and a half per cent,, with a reserved right to 
the government to all the private freight room, when claimed at an agreed 
rate per ton ; which was two-thirds less than had been previously demand- 
ed by other blockade runners, and paid by the government. 

Here again was the story of gross mismanagement and slip-shod admin- 
istration on the part of the Confederate authorities. Great quantities of 
meat were left to rot at Il^assau and Bermuda ; payments were not prompt- 
ly made ; and the new resource that had promised such grand results dwin- 
dled into insignificant numbers. Contracts for supplies, payable in cotton, 
in our x\tlantic ports, were made with several parties ; but in no instance 
with success. Either the amount involved was too small to tempt the 
venality of those who could control or purchase an evasion of the blockade, 
or tlie engagement to deliver meat alone was found to be too small an 
ind'jcement to those enirao'ed in blockade runninir. 



4:86 THE LOST CAUSE 

In consequence of these failures, and of tlie refusal to be allowed to pur 
cliase on the Mississippi, the army, especially in Virginia, was put upon 
short rations. First, they were reduced to one half pound of meat per day 
— which, if it could have been kept up at that, would have been sufficient 
— then to one-third of a pound — though this allowance was not agreed to 
or adhered to by several of the G-euerals commanding — and then to one 
quarter of a pound. Upon this last allowance the Army of ISTorthern 
Virginia wintered. 

The policy of running the blockade, so far as the government was 
interested in it for subsistence, was the occasion of odious monopolies, 
violations of contract, misunderstandings, &c., and proved of little advan- 
tage to the government, and of questionable profit to private parties. What 
was known as the Crenshaw or Collie line of steamers did not start until 
the spring of 1864, and then under unfavourable auspices. One steamei 
was lost on the coast of Ireland, in coming out ; another upon her second 
trip ; but two others, both very superiour steamers, were put upon the 
line, one or both of which had been paid for by large advances made by 
Crenshaw & Co., and were running successfully. Under their contract 
the government was obliged to furnish the whole cargo of cotton for each 
vessel, but, havhig failed to do so, and the private parties having been 
required, against the terms of the contract, to supply their own cotton to 
the vessel at market rates — a demand which was acceded to rather than 
raise the issue — it was determined to take other parties into the contract. 
This was rendered necessary by the inability of the government to trans- 
port the cotton, and by the inability of the private parties to supplement 
the government deficiencies in that particular. The government was ac- 
cordingly induced by the private parties to sell one-fourth of its three-fourths 
interest in the steamers to the Supply Importing Company, composed of 
vai'ious railroad companies and others interested in railroads in the South. 
This — though the terms of the contract were changed, and the parties be- 
came, as was contended by the government, mere carriers, whereby the 
subsistence department lost the benefit of the arrangement it had proposed 
— at once obviated the difficulties about transporting cotton ; and, as this 
new contract provided for twelve steamers, it was hoped that some good 
results might be at last reached. But just as this business had got well 
under way, the government decided upon taking the Atalanta, tlie best of 
the steamers referred to above, for a cniiser. It was urged, in opposition 
to this, that the tested speed and capacity of this vessel had induced the 
private parties interested to enter into large contracts for vessels in Eng- 
land, and to assume heavy obligations to pay for the government interest 
in them ; that there were large quantities of subsistence stores at the Isl- 
ands, purchased by Crenshaw & Co. for the commissariat, which were 
much needed by the army, and might spoil if permitted to remain. Bat 



THE IMPKESSIVIENT LAWS. 481l 

the government insisted upon taking the ship. Other vessels wero built, 
and paid for by the credit of the private parties, and l)y receipts of cotton 
from those successively put on the line ; and the enterprise went on, but 
with results far below the necessities of the country. 

During the whole period of the efforts to put the question of meat sup- 
ply from abroad upon Avhat the bureau of subsistence deemed a proper 
footing, the meat in the limits of the Confederacy was being constantly 
reduced in amount, though under constantly increasing efforts to get it for 
the army. 

The well-known effects of a depreciating currency in causing supplies 
to be hoarded, rendered it necessary to impress them. This mode was 
legalized by acts of Congress, which failed, however, to enforce it by any 
penalty, and rendered it nugatory in many instances by requiring that in 
all cases the impressment should be accompanied by a proffer of the money. 
In some States the feeling against it had rendered it almost inoperative, 
and the judiciary, gubernatorial or legislative action of several had practi- 
cally nullified the law. As a substitute, to last until the currency could 
have been amended, it might have answered ; but experience showed that, 
as a permanent system, it would be resisted and evaded to such an extent 
as to render it of little avail in drawing out a sufiiciency, when to furnish 
it even for the army was to produce privation at home. Under the rapid 
depreciation of our currency, which was now thought by many to have 
reached a point of hopeless bankruptcy, and when the prices under the 
schedule fixed by the Commissioners of Appraisement in the various States 
were merely nominal, it was regarded by the people as an unjust and tyran- 
nical tax, to be resisted to the point of compelling its abandonment as a 
mode of supply. 

It will thus be seen, on a general survey of the whole subsistence policy 
of the Confederate government — its practical rejection of trade with the 
enemy, its feeble and mismanaged efforts in running the blockade, and the 
small yield of impressments — that there could be but one result and that a 
constant diminution of supplies to the point of starvation. It was a policy 
of blunders ; it lacked some steady and deliberate system ; and it finally, 
as we shall see, in the close of the year 1864, got to that point where the 
whole system of Confederate defence was bound to break down by the want 
of suhsistence^ even without a catastrophe of arms! 

It is astonishing what silly devices were hit upon in Richmond to meet 
the coming necessity, and how the empirical remedies of shallow brains 
aggi'avated the disorder. One of these so-called remedies proved one of 
the vilest curses that was ever fastened upon the Confederacy. On the 
6tli November, 1863, an order was issued by the Secretary of "War, that 
no supplies held by a party for his own consumption, or that of his em- 
ployes or slaves, should be impressed, and that " no officer should at any 



488 THE LOST CAUSE. 

time, unless specially ordered so to do by a general Commanding, in a ease 
of exigency, impress supplies which were on their way to market for sale 
on arrival." 

The construction given to that order filled the land with purchasers — 
private individuals, railroad companies, manufacturers of all kinds, corpora- 
tions of every class, relief associations of cities, towns and counties, were per- 
sonally or by their agents in the market buying a year's supply, imlimited 
as to price, and protected from impressment. Speculators, whose pur- 
chases were generally m transitu, found themselves protected, and the 
government playing into their hands. The sudden influx of purchasers into 
the market stimulated the cupidity of producers and holders of the neces- 
saries of life, and induced them to withhold their supplies, under the expec- 
tation of higher prices, and actually raised the prices of all the prime arti- 
cles fully one hundred per cent, within a single month. The purchasing 
officers of the government could not buy ; nor was it reasonable to expect 
parties to sell to the government at schedule price, when double that price 
was offered at their doors by others. They could not impress, for holders 
had, with great promptness, contracted for all their supplies to parties 
who paid them higher prices, and thus it naturally and surely happened 
that the regular supplies of the government were cut off. The whole 
land was infected by speculators pampered by Mr. Seddon, the Secretary 
of War ; and the soldier, who was without shelter fighting our battles, 
found himself discriminated against in favour of the private citizen — who, 
with a roof above him, could better stand a short allowance of food, — and 
put at the mercy of the most heartless and hateful speculators, who had no 
conception of the war beyond that of dollars and cents. 

It has been remarked that the shiftlessness of the people of the South, 
their want of commercial tact or of business hnowledge, so to speak, how- 
ever it might have been doubted before, was fully proved in the war, and 
that this cause, as much as anything else, contributed to the ruin and pros- 
tration of the Confederacy. The unbusiness-like mind of the South was 
well illustrated in its commissariat ; and the mismanagement of this bureau 
confirms the truth of the general observation. It is curious, indeed, how 
this observation extends to all the affairs of the Confederacy. There was 
a stock of childish expedients in times of grave distress in the Confederacy, 
at which the world was rather disposed to laugh, despite the necessities 
they indicated. When iron became scarce, an association of ladies was 
formed to advertise an appeal all through the Confederacy for broken pots 
and pans with which to build an armoured steamer. When the Confed- 
erate finances declined, it was proposed by a foolish woman of Mobile, 
who had probably never heard of the law of supply and demand, that all 
of her sex in the Confederacy should be shorn, and each head of hair bring- 
ing a certain price in the European markets, to realize thus many millious 



MAKE-SHIFTS OF THE CONFEDEEACY. 489 

of dollars ; and the proposition Avas seriously entertained in the newspapers. 
But what shall be said of the government that actually and officially, in the 
course of a system of finance to meet necessities counted by thousands of 
millions of dollars, made appeals to the peoj)le to donate silver plate and 
jewelry, and published monthly lists of contributions of rings, sugar-pota 
and spoons ! These curious lists may still be found in the files of the Kich- 
mond newspapers. Such vagaries are subjects of grave consideration by 
the historian. They illustrate the general character of make-shifts in the 
war. He who seeks to solve the problem of the downfall of the Southern 
Confederacy, must take largely into consideration the absence of any intel- 
ligent and steady system in the conduct of public affairs ; the little circles 
that bounded the Kichmond Administration ; the deplorable want of the 
commercial or business faculty in the Southern mind. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

A. TRAIN OF CONFEDERATE STJ00ESSE3 IN THE BEGINNING OF 1864. — THE BATTLE OF OOKAK 
POND. — GEN. SEYMOUE's EXPEDITION INTO FLORIDA. — ^ITS DEFEAT AND COMPLETE DISAS- 
TER. — Sherman's expedition in the southwest. — nis first experiment of " thb 

MOVABLE COLUMN." — HIS DESIGNS UPON MOBILE AND THE CONFEDERATE LINES IN NORTH 
GEORGIA. — THE CO-OPERATING COLUMN OF CAVALRY. — GEN. POLK EVACUATES MERIDIAN, 
AND FALLS BACK TO DEMOPOLIS. — FORREST DEFEATS THE FEDERAL CAVALRY. — DISAS- 
TROUS AND DISGRACEFUL CONCLUSION OF SHERMAN's ADVENTUUE. — THE RED RIVER EX- 
PEDITION. — GEN. banks' designs UPON TEXAS. — THE CONFEDERATE COMMANDS IN THB 
TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. — THE FEDERAL ADVANCE UP RED RIVER. — THE CONFEDERATES FALL 
BACK TOWARDS SHEEVEPORT. — BATTLE OP MANSFIELD. — HOW THE ACTION WAS BROUGHT 
ON. — EOUT OF THE ENEMY. — SINGULAR SCENES ON THE PURSUIT. — BATTLE OF PLEASANT 
HILL, — AN UNFORTUNATE MISTAKE OF OEDEES. — CHUECHILL's COEPS PANIO-STEIOKEN. — 
GEN. WALKER HOLDS THE FIELD. — THE ENEMY CONTINUES HIS RETREAT TO ALEXANDRIA. — 
HIS MAECH A CAREEE OF TTNPAEALLELED OOWAEDICE AND CEIME. — LAEGE SPOILS OF THB 
CONFEDEEATES. — THE EXTENT OF BANKS' DISASTEE. — TERMINATION OF HIS VISION OP 
EMPIRE WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. — FORREST's EXPEDITION UP THE MISSISSIPPI. — CAPTURE 
OF FORT PILLOW. — HOKE's OPERATIONS ON THE NORTH CAEOLINA COAST. — COMPAEATIVE 

UNTMPOETANCE OF THESE CONFEDERATE SUCCESSES. THE EAID OF TJLEIO DAHLGEEN. — 

THE PARTS OF CUSTEE AND KILPATEICK. — FAILUEE AND LUDI0E0U3 COWARDICE OF THE 

SEVERAL EXPEDITIONS. DAHLGREN's ATROCIOUS DESIGNS. — HE RETREATS, AND 13 

CHASED BY POLLARD. — MANNER OF HIS DEATH. — DISCOVERY OP " THE DAHLGREN PA- 
PEES." — SENSATION IN RICHMOND. — PRESIDENT DAVIs' MELODEAMA. — STATEMENT OP 
EDWARD W. HALBAOH IN RELATION TO THE " DAHLGEEN PAPERS." — THE PAPERS FIRST 

FOUND BY THE SCHOOLBOY LITTLEPAGE. HOW TRANSMITTED TO EIOKMOND. THE THEORY 

OF FORGERY. ITS UTTER ABSURDITY. 

Although the Nortliern public was gratified in eontemplatirig the sum 
of Federal victories in the jear 1863, it had yet to see in the early months 
of ISGi a remarkable train of Confederate successes, which, in the aggre- 
gate, did much to re-animate the Confederates, and to subdue expectation 
at "Washington. These successes were principally a decisive victory in 
Florida ; the defeat of Sherman's expedition in the Southwest ; and a tri- 
umphant issue in the most important campaign that had yet taken place 
west of the Mississippi River. 




V H B.HaU.tJ 



-T,«nn,ed ..mressly forlhelosl Causei^jx^roilari. 



shekman's expedition in the southwest. 491 



BATTLE OF OCEAN POND. 

The operations against Charleston having been virtually abandoned, it 
was decided at "Washington to use the surplus trooj)s in an attempt upon 
Florida. A command of six or seven thousand men, including two regi- 
ments of negroes, was organized under Gen. Seymour, left Charleston har- 
bour in eighteen transports, and in the month of February ascended the 
St. Mary's Eiver. The enemy was allowed to land, as the small Confed- 
erate force under Gen. Finnegan was unequal for anything like a battle, 
and was awaiting reinforcements despatched by Gen. Beauregard, in whose 
military department the State of Florida was included. Colquitt's brigade 
arrived in time to unite with Finnegan and hold the position at Oulustre 
not far from Ocean Pond, an inland lake, where it was proposed to cover 
the capital of the State and defend the road from Lake City to Tallahassee. 
The joint Confederate force did not number more than five thousand men. 

On the 20th February, this little force was advanced several miles to 
meet the enemy. A severe battle opened in the afternoon ; for two hours 
the enemy was steadily pushed back ; until at last about sunset, a simul- 
taneous attack of the Twenty-Seventh and Sixth Georgia Kegiments on 
the enemy's centre and flank broke his whole line into confusion. Five 
pieces of artillery were taken, two thousand small arms, and five hundred 
prisoners. The enemy left upon the field three hundred and fifty dead, 
and abandoned all of his severely w^ounded. The action was decisive, as 
it resulted in the expulsion of the enemy from Florida, and the preserva- 
tion of this State to the Confederacy. 



Sherman's expedition in the southwest. 

Another notable event about this time Avas Sherman's expedition into 
Central Mississippi, in wdiich, with an army of about thirty thousand men, 
he proposed to sever his communications behind him, and to strike ofi" into 
the heart of the country. ^ It was his first experiment of " the movable 
column," but unlike that in the later months of 1864, it had opposing 
military forces to encounter, and came to the most wretched grief. 

The conceit of the Federal commander was to operate upon what was 
called a " strategic triangle " — to move from Yicksburg to Mobile, by the 
way of Selma ; a heavy column of cavalry to start from Mem23]iis, move 
rapidly across Mississij^pi and Alabama, come upon the flank of Gen. 
Polk's army, and harass his retreat while Sherman rushed upon him in 
front ; and thus by the possession of Mobile and Selma to obtain two im- 
portant w^ater-bases — the one on the Mississippi at Yicksburg, the other at 



492 THE LOST CA.USE. 

Mobile on the Gulf, and to establish his army firmly in the triangle 
formed by the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers, and the railroad leading 
from Selma to Demopolis and Meridian. The immediate objects of the 
morement were to cut off Mobile from Johnston, who lay in front of Grant 
on the lines in North Georgia, to break np Polk's army, and then to turn 
down on Mobile, and co-operate with Farragut's fleet, which was at that 
time thundering at the gates of this city. 

On the 3d February, Sherman left Vicksburg with about thirty thou- 
sand infantry, pushed east, and crossed the entire State of Mississippi to 
Meridian. A few days later the cavalry column, eight thousand strong, 
under command of Gens. Smith and Grierson, started from Corinth and 
Holly Springs, and passed, with the usual incidents of pillage and destruc- 
tion, through one of the richest districts of the Confederacy. The junction 
of this cavalry force with Sherman at Meridian was the critical point of 
his plan, and it was thought would enable him to advance upon Demopolis 
and Selma. 

Gen. Polk's little army having been reinforced by two or three 
brigades from the Mobile garrison for the purpose of checking the enemy 
far enough to save his accumulated stores and supplies, was yet in no con- 
dition to give battle, being but half of Sherman's numbers ; and, therefore, 
evacuated Meridian, and retired to Demopolis. Meanwhile Gen. Forrest, 
with not more than twenty-five hundred cavalry, had been detached to 
watch the movements of Smith's and Grierson's commands, and was left 
to confront eight thousand of the best-equipped cavalry that the enemy 
had ever put in the field. But the great cavalry chief of the "West showed 
no hesitation. He struck the enemy on the broad prairies near "West 
Point ; and at Okalona, on the 21st February, he had a more important 
action, and put the enemy in shameful retreat back to Memphis. 

This action of Forrest was decisive of the campaign ; it broke down 
Sherman's means of subsisting his infantry ; and it illustrated on what 
slight conditions depend the defeat or success of an enterprise which leaves 
a well-defined base to penetrate the interiour of a country. Sherman in 
his first experiment of " the movable column " obtained only the cheap 
triumphs of the ruffian and plunderer. He was compelled to make a hasty 
retreat over one hundred and fifty miles of a country he had ravaged and 
exhausted ; he accomplished not a single military result ; he demoralized 
a fine army ; and of the cavalry which was to co-operate with him, this 
mastei of billingsgate in the army declared " half went to h — 11, and half 
to Memphis.^' 

THE KED KIVER EXPEDITION. 

Gen. Banks, the Federal commander, had remained for some months 
idle and ostentatious in Kew Orleans, with just as much of the State of 



BATTLE OF MANSFIELD. 493 

Louisiana in tlie Union as was covered by liis pickets. But he hoped to 
signalize the year 1S64: by a remarkable expedition, which was to proceed 
up Red River as far as Shreveport, thence across the country into the cen- 
tral region of Texas, thereby destroying the Confederate lines on Red 
River, and their supplies, which were then drawn principally from that 
portion of Texas. 

He proposed to move on this expedition with a land force, and a squad 
ron of gunboats and transports — the former numbering about forty thou 
sand men. Maj.-Gen. " Dick " Taylor was at this time commanding the 
Confederate forces operating along the west bank of the Mississippi River. 
Gen. Kirby Smith was commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, 
with headquarters at Shreveport. Gen. Price was temporarily command- 
ing the district of Arkansas, with headquarters in the field, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Camden. The Confederate force in Arkansas numbered 
about eight thousand effective men. That of the Federals was conjectured 
to be about fifteen thousand men, the greater part of which, under Gen. 
Steele, held Little Rock. Gen. Taylor had about ten thousand men, Louis- 
iana and Texas troops. 

About the middle of March, Gen. Banks commenced his advance up 
Red River ; and about two weeks later, Gen. Steele commenced advancing 
from Little Rock, in the direction of Shreveport, intending to unite with 
Banks at that point, and to assist in capturing the place. Gen. Taylor 
made some desultory attempts to oppose or check the advance of the 
enemy, but he was gradually forced back by overwhelming numbers, re- 
treating as slowly as possible in order to give his reinforcements time to 
reach him before he fell back to Shreveport. Gen. Smith had ordered two 
brigades of Missouri infantry and two brigades of Arkansas infantry, which 
had been operating in Arkansas, to go to Taylor's relief; and he also hur- 
ried up some cavalry from Texas. 



BATTLE OF MANSFIELD. 

Red River is a very narrow and tortuous stream, and at the time of the 
expedition was quite low. At Alexandria, one hundred and sixty miles 
below Shreveport, are the " Falls," which obstruct the channel and prevent 
navigation in low water. On the road from Shreveport to Alexandria, 
forty miles from the former place, is Mansfield, a little village of about 
five hundred inhabitants. Twenty miles from Mansfield, on the same 
road, is the village of Pleasant Hill. Twenty miles further on is Blair's 
Landing on Red River. Still further on, forty miles above Alexandria, on 
Old River, which in high water communicates with Red River, we come 
to Natchitoches, the oldest town on Red River, the scene of the last con 



494 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ference between the agents of Aaron Burr and Gen. Hamilton in reference 
to the expedition of the former to conqn'er the Spanish and unfriendly 
powers in Louisiana and Mexico. 

Gen. Smith had determined to make a stand at a point between Mans- 
field and Shreveport, wliere he calculated on having his army concentrated, 
expecting by the superiour valour of his men to defeat the enemy's largo 
force, but if not, to fall back on Shreveport, and figlit from fortifications. 
On the morning of April 8th, Gen, Taylor, with his command now aug- 
mented to fifteen thousand, had reached within two miles of Mansfield, and 
had halted, determined to have an afi'air with the enemy. The Arkansas 
and Missouri infantry organized into two divisions, the Missourians under 
Gen. Parsons and the Arkansians under Gen, Tappan, and both under 
Gen. Churchill, were at Iveachi, a village twenty miles from Mansfield. 
Cliurchill was under orders to march his command until he formed a junc- 
tion with Taylor. Accordingly, his command, on the 8th of April, marched 
from Keachi to Mansfield, a distance of twenty miles, and reached their 
camp after dark. 

Gen, Banks was marching his army by brigades, with intervals of from 
3ne to three miles, each brigade with its train — a favourite plan of march- 
jng with the Federal troops. The place selected by Gen. Taylor for 
engagement was calculated to give great advantage to the party attacked. 
He expected that as soon as Banks' forces came up they would attack him, 
as they had been doing for the past twenty days. 

The ground selected was a large plantation three-quarters of a mile in 
width, and three or four miles in length. The Mansfield and Alexandria 
road ran across it. The ground traversed by the road was higher than on 
either side, forming a ridge. Gen. Taylor, in falling back, crossed the 
clearing, and halted his command on the Avest side, in the timber. The 
advance-guard of Gen. Banks discovering that the Confederates had halted, 
also halted. It appeared as if each party desired the other to attack, and 
several hours were passed in inactivity. About four o'clock in the after- 
noon. Gen. Taylor, becoming impatient, and desiring to camp, determined 
to drive back the advance-guard of the enemy. For this purpose he sent 
forward a battalion of skirmishers, which the enemy perceiving when 
about half way across the field, sent a regiment of cavalry to cut it ofi". 
Gen. Taylor, to save his skirmishers, sent a regiment to their relief ; the 
enemy immediately developed an entire brigade ; the Louisiana Brigade 
was ordered to charge, and thus in a few moments a general action was 
provoked. 

The Louisiana troops moved gallantly forward, at a rapid run, making 
across the clearing half-a-mile, under a terrible fire of the enemy's artillery 
and small arms. There was no pause until they struck the enemy, broke 
the Ime of his first brigade, and captured nearly the whole of it. A sec- 



BATTLE OF PLEASANT HILL. 495 

ond line of the enemy shared the same fate. In this line one of the Fed- 
eral regiments called for " qnarter," and ceased firing, when Gen, Mouton 
rode up to receive their surrender. Several shots were fired at him, and 
he fell dead, his body pierced by four balls. Incensed at this atrocious act 
of cowardice and treachery, the Louisiana troops poured into the regiment 
that had called for quarter volley after volley of musketry, shattering it, 
and killing or wounding nearly every man in it. It was nearly dark when 
the battle ceased. The enemy was driven back ; both wings of his army 
were flanked ; he lost eight hundred killed and wounded, several thousand 
prisoners, one hundred and fifty wagons, eighteen pieces of artillery, and 
five or six thousand stand of small arms. 

At two o'clock next morning, Churchill's corps, which had not been in 
the engagement of the night before, was ordered forward, and put in the 
advance in pursuit of the enemy, who was soon discovered to be in full 
retreat. A detachment of cavalry in advance, acting as skirmishers, were 
constantly picking up stragglers. A thousand men were captured in this 
way during the day. The scene of the disorderly retreat was decidedly 
picturesque. The Zouaves, in their wide trousers, loose jackets, and skull 
caps, all red, torn, dirty, and with lapdogs frequently in their arms, which 
they had stolen as they had come up, presented a singular spectacle, as 
they were marched to the rear in squads of fives, tens, or fifties, generally 
by a Texas cavalry-man, accoutred in ragged pants, a wide hat, and big 
spurs, armed with a long Enfield rifle, and riding a Spanish mule or a 
mustang pony. On the road from the battle-field to within a few miles of 
Pleasant Hill, the Confederates were never out of sight of a deserted 
wagon, some burned and some left standing, ambulances, caissons, boxes 
of ammunition, boxes of crackers, packages of medicines, dead Federals, 
dead horses, and broken and abandoned guns. Some of the wagons were 
loaded with cradles^ intended for cutting the wheat crop of Texas, and 
many of them had in them various articles which had been stolen from 
citizens in the march. 



BATTLE OF PLEASANT HILL. 

As the Confederates advanced within three miles of Pleasant Hill, it 
was reported that the enemy had made a stand there. The troops in ad- 
vance were halted to rest them, and to give time to the rear to close up. 
A council of war was called by Gen. Taylor, who thought that the enemy 
would again retreat as soon as our force developed itself. 

Pleasant Hill, as before stated, is a small village through which runs 
the main road to Alexandria. To the southwest of the village was a large 
clearing traversed bj three deep gullies. On the southeast corner stood 
what was known as the College Building. 



496 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Fiom til*; point wliere the Confederates halted a road makes a detour 
from the main road and comes into a clearing back of the village, at the 
southwest corner. Just before entering the clearing, a road branches off 
from this and makes a still greater detour to the south, and comes into the 
clearing back of the college. Gren. Taylor, supposing that the enemy had 
formed across the main road, directed Walker's division cf Texas troops, 
the cavalry in reserve, and also the Louisiana infantry in supporting dis- 
tance to advance along the road, attack, and drive him. Chiirchill with 
his corps was ordered to take the road which has been described as leading 
around the village, and thereby strike the enemy in the flank. Gen. Tay- 
lor was not aware that this road came in at the southwest corner, but 
thought it came in at the southeast corner near the College, and hence 
failed to caution Churchill against coming in too soon. The army ad- 
vanced as directed, and Churchill, provided with a guide, moved forward. 
When he came to where the other road led off to the right, the guide in- 
eisted that Gren. Taylor intended the troops to take it, and come in by the 
College. Gen. Churchill replied that Gen. Taylor had not spoken of turn- 
ing off' that road, and as the main road led forward he determined to con- 
tinue on it. The guide, knowing the country well, understood Gen. 
Taylor's plan, although the commander had blundered in describing it. 
Churchill advanced until he reached the edge of the clearing, then 
marched to the left, forming his line parallel with the main road, but three- 
quarters of a mile from it. The Federals had formed a line across the road 
in the thick timber, and had thrown up logs and rails several feet high to 
protect them. They had also fonned two lines, on the left flank of this 
lirst line, and at right angles to it, and parallel to the road, in two gullies 
running through the clearing, with their left resting on the edge of timber. 
Their reserve line was formed beyond the village, the right flank resting 
on the main road and the left extended to the vicinity of the College. A 
battery was planted at the west end of the village in the road, and another 
planted on the rising ground near the College. The enemy's forces were 
thus admirably posted to repel an attack and to take advantage of any suc- 
cess they might obtain. They kept their positions well covered by heavy 
bodies of sharpshooters, and the Confederates had to advance in line of 
battle in full force to discover iheir position. 

Gen. Walker had advanced along the road, but had met with so much 
resistance from skirmishers as to induce Gen. Churchill to believe that he 
had discovered the enemy, and was really in his rear. He therefore or- 
dered an advance at double-quick in the direction of the firing. Meanwhile 
Walker, having driven in the skirmishers, discovered the enemy in large 
force concealed in the underbrush, and ordered a charge. But the brash 
was almost impenetrable, and the enemy was in a cover from which he 
could not be easily driven. In front of his position for one hundred yard>- 



BATTLE OF PLEASANT HILL. 497 

the smcall trees were cut off as by an even scythe about four feet high, by 
the iucessant volleys of the enemy's fire. Churchill, coming up soon, struck 
the first line of the enemy posted in the gully. The vigour of the attack 
was remarkable ; the troops ran over the first line of the enemy, never 
pausing to take prisoners, and merely shouting to the affrighted Federals 
to get to the rear. In a few moments a second line of tlie enemy was 
pushed back, and Churchill was soon up where Walker was attacking, 
}3y the combiued assault the enemy was driven from his position, and fell 
back to the gullies in the field. 

Walker's and Churchill's men were now mtermixed and in some con- 
fusion. Col. Burns, commanding the 2d Brigade of Missouri infantry, 
succeeded in getting bis bi'igade in order, and, supported by the other com- 
mands, moved by the right flank until he came into position to charge the 
enemy in their new position. In a few moments the Federals were driven 
back through the village. The 11th Missouri infantry captured a battery 
which had been planted in the road. In charging the enemy, our forces 
came full against the village, and Burns' brigade, being in advance in the 
flank movement, were consequently .n the extreme right, and reached 
beyond the main part of the village. Just as they had driven the enemy 
through the village, the line of his reserves, which, by its position, was 
immediately on our right flank, commenced firing, and advancing the 
left, which had rested near the College. The Confederates were thus sud- 
denly exposed to a flanking and rear fire. They were scattered from the 
last charge, and fell into disorder. 

About two hundred of the Missouri brigade were taken prisoners. A 
confusion and panic ensued, which it soon became impossible to arrest. 
The retreat on the part of Churchill's corps was converted into a rout, with 
no enemy pursuing. Gen. Parsons passed the fugitive troops on a fleet 
horse, shouting : " The enemy are on you ; meet me at Mansfield." Some 
of the officers led the men in their flight. One officer came galloping by 
the Field Infirmary, crying out : " Get away from here ; the enemy have 
planted a battery on the hill, and will commence firing in a minute." 
The enemy had no battery in less than a mile, and the officer was so badly 
frightened that he had mistaken two of our pieces, which a panic-stricken 
lieutenant had deserted, for a Federal battery. But there were instances 
of gallantry even in this retreat. Col, Burns attempted long to rally his 
brigade, and failing, followed it from the field as calmly as if he were re- 
turning from drill. Col. Moore, commanding the 10th Missouri infantry, 
was the last to leave the field. On foot he had collected about fifty men, 
and was sharpshooting the enemy as long as he attempted to follow. 
Through the efforts of Cols. Burns and Moore, principally, the troops were 
halted and organized about two miles from the village. Part of Walker's 
command remained on the ground taken from the enemy, as also some 
32 



498 THE LOST CAUSE. 

cavalry and a regiment of Arkansas infantry. Instead of showing any in- 
clination to pursue or even attempting to take the ground he had lost, tho 
enemy commenced falling back immediately, leaving his dead and wounded 
on the field. As night fell. Gen. Smith arrived upon the field, ordered 
Churchill's corps back to Arkansas to the relief of Gen. Price, and directed 
Gen. Taylor to follow up the enemy. 

The Confederate loss in the battle of Pleasant Hill was two hundred 
killed, five hundred wounded, and about two hundred and fifty prisoners. 
The Federal loss was killed three hundred, wounded eight hundred, pris- 
oners two thousand. In about a week thereafter our prisoners were re- 
turned, in partial payment of a deficiency on a former exchange. The 
Federal prisoners were sent to Tyler, Texas. 

The morning following the battle. Gen. Green, with his Texas cavalry, 
was put in advance in pursuit of the enemy. The gunboat squadron was 
retreating down the river. The cavalry fired upon it at Blair's Landing, 
and Gen. Green was killed by the fragment of a shell. The enemy was 
vigorously annoyed all the way to Alexandria ; and there he was com- 
pelled to make a stand, to gain time to get his boats over the rapids, as the 
river had fallen so much as to make it impossible to float them over. Gen. 
Taylor's force had been weakened too much to attack and drive the enemy 
from his fortifications ; and " Yankee ingenuity " triumphed over the 
" Falls " by the construction of a tree-dam six hundred feet across the river. 
The boats were floated off, and the land forces passed on by the light of 
the burning town, which they fired as they left. It was the last act of 
atrocity in a career of unparalleled cowardice and ci'ime. Along the line 
of Banks' march but few sugar-houses, cotton gins, or even dwelling- 
houses were left standing. It was said that his troops marched on their 
retreat " with a torch in their right hand, plunder in their left, and their 
arms on their backs." 

Gen. Banks, instead of w^inning laurels, and harvesting the wheat-fields 
of Texas, returned to New Orleans ruined in military reputation, with the 
loss of eight thousand killed and wounded, six thousand prisoners, thirty- 
five pieces of artillery, twelve hundred wagons, one gunboat, and three 
transports and about twenty thousand stand of small arms. Most of the 
captured wagons belonged to Steele, who, after various skirmishes in 
Arkansas, had returned to Little Rock with two wagons out of a train 
of near eight hundred, and after having lost all of his artillery. Thus ended 
the expedition to capture Shreveport and overrun Texas ; and thus dis- 
solved the vision of Banks' splendid empire west of the Mississippi, now 
practically-reduced to the tenure of New Orleans, the banks of the river, 
and a strip of sea-coast. 

We have seen that three notable expeditions of the enemy, in the early 
part of 1864: — that against Florida, that against Mississippi and Alabama, 



RAID OF ULRIC DAHLGREN. 499 

and that against Texas, — had resulted in extreme disaster. They were fol- 
lowed by some expeditions and episodes on the Confederate side, which 
must be briefly mentioned here, as their results, although successful, threw 
but little weight into the scales of the war. Such was the expedition by 
which Forrest, in the month of April, spread terrour along the banks of the 
Mississippi, stormed Fort Pillow,* and cut a swath across the State of Ken- 
tucky, Such, too, was the expedition of Hoke, which captured in North 
Carolina the strong position of Plymouth, that protected the whole 
Eoanoke Valley, taking in the place sixteen hundred prisoners and twenty- 
five pieces of artillery. The latter success was thought, indeed, to be of 
permanent value, as it left the enemy only two places, Washington and 
Newbern, on the coast of North Carolina ; but the force that had moved 
to Plymouth had to be recalled to the great campaign about to take place 
in Virginia, and the line of operations it had drawn was soon obliterated 
from the general map of the war. 

In a general history there is but little space for detached events. We 
have briefly treated those which preceded the large and active campaigns 
of 1864. But we must make an exception to this rule in case of an expe- 
dition of Federal cavalry, directed against Richmond, in the month of 
March, which, although a very small incident in military view, is to be 
taken among the most interesting events of the war, as containing one of 
the most distinct and deliberate evidences of the enemy's atrocity that had 
yet been given to a shocked and surprised world. 



THE EAU) OF ULRIC DAHLGREN. 

About the close of February, an expedition of Federal cavalry was organ- 
ized to move towards Richmond, in which Col. Ulric Dahlgren — a son of 
the Federal admiral who had operated so ineffectually against Charleston— 

* In the capture of Fort Pillow the list of casualties embraced five hundred out of a garrison of 
seven hundred ; and the enemy entitled the affair " The Fort Piliow Massacre," and Northern news- 
papers and Congressional committees circulated absurd stories about negro troops being buried 
alive. The explanation of the unusual proportion of carnage is simple. After the Confederates got 
into the fort, the Federal flag was not hauled down ; there was no surrender ; relying upon his gun- 
boats in the river, the enemy evidently expected to annihilate Forrest's forces after they had entered 
the works ; and so the fighting went on to the last extremity. Some of the negro troops, in their 
cowardice, feigned death, falling to the ground, and were either pricked up by the bayonet, or rolled 
into the trenches to excite their alarm — to which circumstance is reduced the whole story of " bury- 
ing negroes alive." Forrest was a hard fighter ; he had an immense brain ; but he knew but little 
anout grammar and dictionaries. In describing the alarm and bewilderment in Fort Pillow to a 
superiour officer — who, by the way, has frequently expressed the opinion that Forrest, nctwithiiland* 
Ing his defects in literary education, stood second only to Stonewall Jackson as the most remarkable 
man of the war, — ^Forrest said : " General, the d — d Yankees kept firing horizontally right up into 
the air." 



600 THE LOST CAUSE. 

was second in coramancl. One branch of the expedition under Gen. Cas- 
ter was to create a diversion and distract attention in the direction of 
Charlottesville ; the other was to divide at Beaver Dam, one part of it 
under Gen. Kilpatrick to move down on the north side of Richmond, the 
other, commanded by Dahlgren, to cross the James E,iver at some point 
in Goochland County, make an attack upon the south of the capital, which 
was suj)posed to be undefended, release the Federal prisoners tliere, fire 
" the hateful city," and murder in cold blood the President and his prin- 
cipal officers ! Such was the fiendish plot of the enemy, the chief part of 
which was to be enacted by a young man some twenty-odd years old, 
whose education, social pretensions, and soft manners would scarcely have 
given one the idea of an enterprise which compassed all the revenge, vil- 
lainy, and cowardice of the most savage warfare. 

The parts of Caster and Kilpatrick were very weakly carried out. The 
first reached the vicinity of Charlottesville, and finding Stuart's horse artil- 
lery (here, retreated at a rapid pace, and fell back to his infantry suj)ports at 
Madison Court- House, The second, moving down on the Brook turnpike, 
came, on the 1st March, near the outer line of the Richmond fortifications, 
and without once getting within range of the artillery, took up a line of 
march down the Peninsula. Meanwhile, Dahlgren, not venturing to cross 
the high water of the James River, abandoned his enterprise on the south 
side of Richmond, and, unapprised of the ludicrous cowardice and retreat 
of Kilpatrick, proposed, by moving down the Westham plank-road, which 
skirted the river, to effect a junction with him, with a view to further 
operations or to the security of his retreat. 

On the night of the 1st March, Dahlgren pursued his way towards 
Richmond, with seven or eight hundred horsemen. The night was very 
dark ; there was nothing on the road but a force of local soldiery, com- 
posed of a battalion of artisans in the Richmond Armory and a battalion 
of department clerks ; this thin force of unskilled soldiers was all that stood 
between Dahlgren and the revenge he had plotted to pour in blood and 
fire upon the devoted capital of the Confederacy. But it was sufficient. 
The valorous cavalry that came on with shouts of " Charge the d — d mlitia," 
broke at the first fire ; and a single fire of musketry, that killed eleven of 
his men, sufficed to scatter in shameful flight Dahlgren's picked com- 
mand of " braves." 

After this dastardly event, Dahlgren, anxious now only for his retreat, 
divided what of his force he could collect, so as to increase his chances 
of escape. The force under his immediate command moved down tho 
south bank of the Pamunkey, and in the afternoon of the next day crossed 
the Mattapony at Ayletts in King and Queen County. As the ferry-boat 
at this place had been taken up and hid, Lieut. Pollard, who had posted 
from Richmond to chase the raiders, supposing they would not attempt to 



RAID OF ULEIC DAHLGEEN. 501 

cros3 here, and wishing to dispute the passage of the river wherever it 
might be attempted, went, with a few men of " Lee's Kangers," farther up 
the river to Dunkirk, where it was thought the enemy would endeavour 
to cross. But the raiders, having found an old flat-boat at Ayletts, siic- 
ceedod in crossing here, swimming their horses. Lieut. Pollard, now find- 
ing that the enemy had succeeded in crossing the river below him, imme- 
diately left Dunkirk, and went in pursuit, with the intention of hanging 
on his rear, and harassing him as much as possible with his handful 
of men. 

The rear-guard of the enemy was overtaken a short distance above 
Bruington Church, and driven down the road on their main body. The 
party under Lieut. Pollard, numbering now about twenty, advanced, and a 
desultory fire was kept up for a mile or two. Pollard's party was afterwards 
joined by some " Home-Guards," under Capt, E-. H. Bagby, and the 
whole force now probably numbered thirty men. 

The enemy, having reached the forks of the road near the point where 
" Butler's Tavern " once stood, took the right fork. Here Lieut. Pollard 
asked the advice and information of persons who were familiar with the 
roads and country, and it was decided to ambush tlie enemy at a point 
about a mile and a half below Stevensville. The enemy numbered about 
one hundred and had forty negroes with him. A feint was made by send- 
ing a few men in pursuit of the fugitives, while the main force hastened 
down the left fork of the road leading to Stevensville. The place of am- 
bush was reached about dark. 

In the mean time Pollard's force had been increased by a detachment 
from the 24th Yirginia Cavalry, Capt. McGruder commanding, and now 
numbered about seventy or eighty men. These were also joined by Capt. 
Fox, of the 5th Yirginia Cavalry, vv'ith a few men, and he, being the rank- 
ing officer, assumed command of the whole force, which was ranged along 
the road in ambush. 

Scouts were sent out to ascertain the whereabouts of the enemy, wlio, 
it was found, had reached a point about a mile distant, on wliat was called 
the " River Road," where they were in bivouac. A consultation was held 
among the Confederate officers, and it was at one time decided to attaclc 
the enemy, but the final decision was to await his approach. 

Some of the officers thought that the raiders would remain in bivouac 
only long enough to feed their horses, while others thought that they 
would not advance before morning, or, at least, before the rise of the 
moon about 2 or 3 a. m. Those who held the latter opinion went to neigh- 
bouring houses for the purpose of securing a little rest. Among these was 
Lieut. Pollard, who was, consequently, not present when the enemy 
3am e up. 

The enemy advanced about 11 o'clock at night, Col. Dahlgren leading 



502 THE LOST CAUSE. 

his men. He saw a few men in the road, and ordered them to surrender 
He was answered by a fire from a few guns. The fire was returned by 
a few shots from the enemy's front. There was no " desperate fight ; " 
there was no " cutting the way out," nothing of the sort. A few guna 
were fired on each side, resulting in the kilhng of Col. Dahlgren — pos- 
sibly by his own men — and the wounding of two or three privatea 
TJirown into confusion by the slight fire, and panic-stricken, the raiders 
fied down the road they had just come up, and endeavoured to escape 
through a field iuimediately in front of the concealed position of the Con- 
federates. They were bafiied in this by a creek which ran from the place 
of ambush into the Mattapony. Near this creek they camped during the 
remainder of the niglit, and, having been deserted completely by their 
oflicers, surrendered the next morning, probably eighty soldiers and thirty 
negroes — others being picked up during the day. 

The great interest of the aflair remained to be disclosed. There were 
discovered on the dead body of Dahlgren a written address to his men, 
and other documents, revealing to the startled sensibilities of the people 
of Richmond the horrours which they had narrowly escaped. The Con- 
federates had here documentary evidence of the atrocious spirit of the 
enemy, which it was important to exhibit to the world ; for whatever had 
been the constant assertion on this subject, the persistent denials of North- 
ern prints, their audacious recrimination, and the stereotypes of Federal 
hypocrisy about " Union," " cause of humanity," " hopes of the world," 
etc., had heretofore imposed upon the credulous, and put a certain garb of 
virtue on the most iniquitous designs. But here at last the enemy had, 
by a document plainer and more significant than any published to the 
world from the bureaux of Washington, revealed the stark and deformed 
genius of the war. 

On the person of Dahlgren there was discovered the following address 
to the ofiicers and men of the command, written on a sheet of paper hav- 
ing in printed letters on the upper corner, " Headquarters Third Division, 
Cavalry Corps, , 1864 : " 

" Officers and inen : 

" You have been selected from brigades and regiments as a picked command to at- 
tempt a desperate undertaking, which, if successful, will write your names on the hearts 
of your countrymen in letters that can never be erased, and will cause the prayers of our 
fellow-soldiers, now confined in loathsome prisons, to follow you and yours wherever 
you may go. 

" "We hope to release the prisoners from Belle Island first, and having seen them fairly 
Btarted, we will cross the James River into Richmond, destroying the bridges after us, 
and exhorting the released prisoners to destroy and hum the hateful city, and do not alloii 
the rebel leader Davis, and his traitorous crew to escape. The prisoners must render great 
assistance, as you cannot leave your ranks too far, or become too much scattered, or yon 
will bo lost. 



THE DAHLGREN PAPERS. 603 

" Do not allow any personal gain to lead you off, which would only bring you to an 
ignominious death at the hands of citizens. Keep well together, and obey orders strictly., 
and all will be Avell, but on no account scatter too far ; for in union there is strength. 

"With strict obedience to orders, and fearlessness in tlie execution, you will be sure 
to succeed. 

"We will join the main force on the other side of the city^or perhaps meet thera 
inside. 

"Many of you may fall ; but if there is any man here not willing to sacrifice lvi« 
life in such a great and glorious undertaking, or who does not feel capable of meeting 
the enemy in such a desperate fight as will follow, let him step out, and he may go hence 
to the arms of his sweetheart, and read of the braves who swept through the city of 
Richmond. 

" We want no man who cannot feel sure of success in such a holy cause. 

" We will have a desperate fight ; but stand up to it when it does come, and all will 
be well. 

" Ask the blessing of the Almighty, and do not fear the enemy. 

" U. DAHLGREN, 

" Colonel Commanding,^ 



It might be supposed that the Eichmond authorities would have at- 
tempted some substantial retaliation, in view of these murderous and in- 
cendiary disclosures, and would have treated those of Dahlgren's raiders 
wlio had been captured as the felons they really were. But President 
Davis was weak and melodramatic on the subject of retaliation ; a distinct 
victim had never yet been exacted for innumerable murders and massacres 
committed by the enemy ; a single act of substantial retaliation had never 
been done by the Confederate Administration ; and now the utterly absurd 
and puerile notice in Richmond of the Dahlgren raid was to bury the 
body of its leader in a concealed grave, and to put several tons of powder 
under the Libby Prison to intimidate its inmates. Such stupid melo- 
drama is almost incredible in the head of a great government, and merely 
gave occasion to the enemy to exclaim about " rebel barbarities," and to 
surround with romance a deed of villainy from which the public, without 
such appeals to their interest and sympathy, would have turned with aver- 
sion. Indeed so far did the misrepresentation and hypocrisy of the North 
go on this subject, that the authenticity of the papers found on Dahlgren 
was denied, and with that singular disposition of JSTorthern newspapers to 
interpret as heroism, and entitle as fame, the worst villainies of the war, 
and its most ruthless and comprehensive works of destruction, the name of 
Ulric Dahlgren was written as " the young hero of the North," who h»d 
been " assassinated " on the path to glory. 

The authenticity of " the Dahlgren Papers " — the most important 
only of which we have copied above — is probably no longer a question 
with the intelligent. But to put it beyond all dispute, we annex here 



604 THE LOST CAUSE. 

detailed statement of tlie circumstances of the discovery of these papera, 
obtained from the living witness under whose eye they first came : 



STATEMENT OF EDWARD W. HALBACE IN RELATION TO "TELE 
DAHLGREN PAPERS." 

" In the summer of 1863, I, Edward W. Halbach, was living at Stevensville, in King 
and Queen County, Virginia. I had ah'eady been exempted from military service on 
account of the condition of my health, and was now exempt as a schoolmaster having the 
requisite number of pupils. But feeling it my duty to do what I could to encounter the 
raids of the enemy, I determined to form a company of my pupils between the ages of 
thirteen and seventeen years. My commission and papers prove that the company was 
formed, and accepted by the President for " Local Defence." A member of this com- 
pany, thirteen years of age at the time, captured the notorious "Dahlgren Papers." 
The name of this boy is "William Littlepa^e. 

" Littlepage and myself were at Stevensville when the rangers passed that place on 
their way to the appointed place of ambush. Being determined to participate in the 
affair, we set off on foot, having no horses to ride, and reached the rendezvous a little 
after dark. The Yankees came up in a few hours, and were fired on. Immediately after 
this fire, and while it was still doubtful whether the enemy would summon up courage 
enough to advance again, in a word, before any one else ventured to do so, Littlepage 
ran out into the road, and, finding a " dead Yankee " there, proceeded to search his 
pockets to see, as he said, if he might not be fortunate enough to find a watch. The 
little fellow wanted to own a watch, and, as the Yankees had robbed me, his teacher, 
af a gold watch a short time before, I suppose he concluded that there would be no harm 
in his taking a watch ft-om a " dead Yankee ; " but his teacher always discouraged any 
feeding of this kind in his pupils. Littlepage failed to secure the prize by not looking in 
the overcoat pockets, and the watch (for there was really one) was found afterwards by 
Lieut. Hart. But in searching the pockets of the inner garments, Littlepage did find a 
segar-case, a memorandum-box, etc. 

" When the Yankees had been driven back and thrown into a panic by the sudden- 
ness of our fire and the darkness of the night, a Confederate lieutenant, whom the enemy 
had captured at Prederick Hall, embraced the opportunity presented to make his escape, 
and actually succeeded in getting over to our side. 

■Ve could, by this time, hear tlie enemy galloping rapidly over the field, and ar- 
rangements were soon made to prevent their possible escape. Our force determined to 
go down the road towards King and Queen Court-House, and barricade it. 

" But, as before mentioned, myself and the only member of my companj had with 
me, were on foot, and unable to keep up with the horsemen. It was therefore decided 
that the prisoners whom we had captured should be left in my charge. In the confu- 
wion, however, all the prisoners had been carried off by others, save the one claiming to 
De a Confederate officer, which he afterwards proved to be — and a gallant one at that. 
But, under the circumstances, I felt compelled to treat him as an enemy, until time should 
prove him a friend. 

" Wishing to find a place of safety, and feeling that it would be hazardous for so 
small a party to take any of the public roads (for we knew not how many more Yankees 
there were, nor in what direction they might come), I decided to go into the woods a 



STATEMENT OF EDWARD W. HALBAOH 505 

short distance, and there spend the night. My party consisted of myself, Littlepage, the 
•' lieutenant," and several other gentlemen of King and Queen County. We walked into 
the woods about a quarter of a mile, and sat down. 

" Up to this time, we had not even an intimation of the name and rank of the officer 
commanding the enemy. In fact, we felt no curiosity to know. All we cared for was to 
punish as severely as possible the raiders with whom we were contending. We knew 
that one man was killed, but knew not who he was. We were just getting our places 
for the night, and wrapping up with blankets, garments, etc., such as we had, for the 
ground was freezing, and we dared not make a fir^, when Littlepage pulled out a segar-case, 
and said : ' Mr. Halbach, will you have a segar ? ' ' No,' said I ; ' but where did you get 
segars these hard times ? ' lie replied that lie had got them out of tlie pocket of the 
Yankee who had been killed, and that lie had also taken from the same man a memoran- 
dum-book and some papers. ' Well,' said I, ' William, you must give me the papers, 
and you may keep the segar-case.' 

" Littlepage then remarked that the dead Yankee had a wooden leg. Here the Lieu- 
tenant, greatly agitated, exclaimed : ' How do you know he has a wooden leg? ' 

" ' I know he has,' replied Littlepage, ' because I caught hold of it, and tried to puU 
it off.' 

" ' There ! ' replied the Lieutenant, ' yon have killed Col. Dahlgren, who was in com- 
mand of the enemy. His men were devoted to him, and I would advise you all to take 
care of yourselves now, for if the Yankees catch you with anything belonging to him 
they will certainly hang us all to the nearest tree.' 

" Of course it was impossible for us to learn the contents of the papers, without mak- 
ing a light to read them by, or waiting till the nest morning. We did the latter ; and, 
as soon as day broke, the papers were read, and found to contain every line and every 
word as afterwards copied into the Eichmond newspapers. Dahlgren's name was signed 
to one or more of the papers, and also written on the inside of the front cover of his 
memorandum-book. Here the date of purchase, I suppose, was added. The book had 
been written with a degree of haste clearly indicated by the frequent interlineations and 
corrections, but the orders referred to had also been re-written on a separate sheet of 
paper ; and, as thus copied, were published to the world. Some of the papers were 
found loose in Dahlgren's pockets, others were between the leaves of the memorandum- 
book. 

" The papers thus brought to light were preserved by myself in the continual pres- 
ence of witnesses of unquestionable veracity, until about two o'clock in the afternoon of 
the day after their capture ; at which time myself and party met Lieut. Pollard, who, up 
to this time, knew nothing in the world of the existence of the Dahlgren Papers. At 
his request, I let him read the papers ; after doing which he requested me to let him carry 
them to Richmond. At first, I refused, for I thought that I knew what to do with tliem 
quite as well as any one else. But I was finally induced, by my friend-i, against my will, 
to surrender the papers to Lieut. Pollard, mainly in consideration of the fact that they 
would reach Richmond much sooner through him than through a semi-weekly mail. The 
papers which were thus handed over to the Confederate Government — I state it again — 
were correctly copied Jjy the Richmond jieicspapers. 

A thousand and one falsehoods have been told about this affair — by our own men as well 
as by the Yankees. Some of our own men were actuated by motives of selfislmess and 
ambition to claim each one for himself the whole credit of the aflair ; when, in fact, 
the credit belongs to no particular individual, but, collectively, to the whole of our party. 
We were a strange medley of regulars, raw troops, old farmers, preachers, schoolboys 
etc. But I believe that all present did their duty, only to find that all the credit waa 



506 THE LOST CAUSE, 

afterwards claimed, with a considerable degree of success among the igncrant, by those 
who were not present. 

" The credit of the command of our party belongs alone to Capt. Fox, than whom 
there was no more chivalric spirit in either army. In makii)g this statement, I am actu- 
ated only by a desire to do justice to the memory of one who was too unassuming to 
sound liis own trumpet. I am also told, by soldiers, that Lieut. Pollard deserves a con- 
siderable degree of credit, for the part he played in following and harassing the enemy 
up to the time they took the right fork of the road near J3utler's Tavern. 

" You are, of course, aware of the fact that the enemy has always denied the au- 
thenticity of the Dahlgren Papers, and declared them to be forgeries. To prove the 
utter absurdity and falsehood of such a charge, I submit the following : 

" 1. The papers were taken by Littlepage from the person of a man whose name he 
had never heard. It was a dark night, and the captor, with the aid of the noon-day 
Bun, could not write at all. I afterwards taught him to write a little in my school. 

" The question occurs : Can a boy who cannot write at all, write such papers, and 
sign to them an unknown name ? If they had been forged by any one else, would they 
have been placed in the hands of a child ? Could any one else have forged an unknown 
and unheard of name? 

" 2. The papers were handed to me immediately after their capture, in the presence 
of gentlemen of undoubted integrity and veracity, before whom I can prove that the 
papers not only were not, but could not have been, altered or interpolated by myself. 
These gentlemen were with me every moment of the time between my receiving the 
papers and my delivering them to Lieut, Pollard. 

" 3. If Lieut. Pollard had made any alterations in the papers, these would have been 
detected by every one who read the papers before they were given to him, and after- 
wards read them in the newpapers. But all agree that they were correctly copied. In 
short, human testimony cannot establish any fact more fully than the fact that Col. Ulric 
Dahlgron was the author of the " Dahlgren Papers." 

" With regard to the part taken by myself in this affair, I lay no claim to any credit. 
I do not write this version of the affair to gain notoriety, I have made it a rule not to 
mention my own name, except in cases where I found that false impressions were being 
made upon the public mind. You know very well that my being Littiepage's captain 
entitled me to claim the capture of the papers for myself. But this I have never done 
And, even when called upon by Gen. Fitz. Lee to give my siBdavit to the authenticity of 
the papers, I wrote him word that Littlepage was the captor of them. In his letter te 
Lieut. Pollard, which was forwarded to me, he asked : ' Who is Capt, Ilalbach ? ' I re- 
plied, for myself, that I was nothing more than the humble captain of a company of 
school-boys, and that if I deserved any credit, it was only so much as he might choose 
to give me for preserving the papers, when advised to destroy them, to avoid being cap- 
tured with them in my possession, which, I was told, would result in the hanging of our 
little party. 

" I have never given the information herein contained before, because I had hoped 
that it would be given to the public by others, and I give it now, because I regard it as 
a duty to do so. My own course, after the killing of Dahlgren, was as follows : I joined 
those who agreed to bury him decently in a coffin, and in compliance with a promise 
made to a scout by the name of Hogan, I prepared a neat little head-board wi h my own 
hands, to mark his grave. This was not put up, because the messenger from Air. Dav5« 
for the body of Dahlgren arrived while we were taking it out of the ground where *> 
liad been hastily buried." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

OPENING OF THE GREAT SPRING CAMPAIGN OF 1864. — EXPLANATION OF RENE-WED CONFIDET^IE IS 
EIOHMOND. — PROSPECT FOR THE CONFEDERATES IN THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1804. — 

A NEW THEORY OF PEACE. VALUE OF ENDURANCE. — THE MISSION OF MESSRS. HOLCOMBE, 

CLAY AND THOMPSON. — THEY LEAVE WILMINGTON WHEN THE CAMPAIGN ON THE RAPIDAN 
OPENS. U. S. GRANT APPOINTED LIEUTENANT-GENERAL OF THE FEDERAL ARMIES. — CHAR- 
ACTER OF GRANT. — COMPARED WITH BUELL. GEN, GRANt's LOW AND GROSS CONCEPTION 

OF WAR. — THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PREPARES AN ARMY ORGANIZATION OF ONE MIL- 
LION OF MEN. — DISTRIBUTION OF THE FEDERAL FORCES IN VIRGINIA. — STRENGTH OF THE 

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. — POSITION AND NUMBERS OF GEN. LEE. HIS GREAT ANXIETY. 

APPEAL OF CONFEDERATE WOMEN. — THE BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. GRANT CROSSES 

THE RAPIDAN. LEE SPRINGS UPON HIS FLANK. — ATTACK OF EWEI.L AND HILL. THE CON- 
FEDERATE LINE BROKEN. GORDON'S SPLENDID CHARGE. GALLANT CONDUCT OF PEGRAm's 

AND hays' DIVISIONS. — NIGHT ATTACK OF THE ENEMY. THE SECOND DAY'S BATTLE. 

hill's CORPS BROKEN. — LONGSTREET COMES UP AND TURNS THE FORTUNES OF THE DAY. 

HK IS SHOT DOWN BY HIS OWN MEN. — GEN. LEE OFFERS TO LEAD A CHARGE. — TOUCHING 
REMONSTRANCES OF THE MEN. — THE CONFEDERATE ATTACK WITHDRAWN. — RESULTS OF 

THE DAY. — Gordon's night attack. — grant's whole army on the verge of rout.— 

HIS immense losses. MOVEMENTS OF THE TWO ARMIES TO SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE 

masterly performance of lee. — a melancholy episode to the campaign. 

Sheridan's expedition. — death of gen. stuart. — battles of spottsylvania court- 
house. — COMBAT of Anderson's corps. — the fighting on the IOtii may. — the bat- 
tle ON THE 12th. A salient OF THE CONFEDERATE LINE TAKEN. — GREAT SLAUGHTER 

OF THE ENEMY. — GRANT CONFESSES A FAILURE, AND WAITS SIX DAYS FOR REINFORCE- 
MENTS. OPERATIONS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF RICHMOND. GRANt's INSTRUCTIONS TO 

BUTLER.— SIGEl's COLUMN IN WESTERN VIRGINIA, ANOTHER PART OF THE COMBINATION. 

butler's BOASTFUL DESPATCH. HE DARES " THE WHOLE OF LEE's ARMY.'' — HE 13 DE- 
FEATED BY BEAUREGARD, AND HIS ARMY " BOTTLED UP." OPERATIONS IN THE KANAWHA 

AND SHENANDOAH VALLEYS. SIGNAL DEFEAT OF SIGEL. — GRANt's COMBINATION BROKEN 

DOWN. — HE MOVES TO THE NORTH ANNA RIVER. — IS FOILED AGAIN BY LEE. — HE CROSSES 
THE PAMUNKEY RIVER. — " THE PENINSULA " MADE THE BATTLE-GROUND AGAIN. — TIO 
BUM OF GLORY ACHIEVED BY LEe's ARMY. — STATEMENT AS TO LEE's REINFORCEMENTS. — 
THE FEDERAL HOST HELD AT BAY BY AN ARMY OF FIFTY THOUSAND MEN. GASEOUS NON- 
SENSE IN NEW YORK ABOUT GRANT's GENERALSHIP. Hid OPERATIONS IN MAY ABSURD 

AND CONTEMPTIBLE FAILURES. 

It is remarkable that at tlie opening of the great spring campaign of 
1864, tliere should have simultaneously prevailed at Washington the opin- 
ion that the operations of the year would certainly restore the Union, and 



508 THE LOST CAUSE. 

at Richmond the opinion that tlie coming campaign was more likely to 
accomplish the independence of the Southern Confederacy than any pre- 
ceding one of the war. These opinions wore probably equally sincere and 
intelligent. Some special explanation must be found for a conflict of 
judgment so sharp and decided. The North trusted to its acumulation of 
men and material to make the fourth year of the war the triumphant one 
for its cause. The South, to a certain extent, had been encouraged by the 
series of successes we have remarked in the first months of this year ; but 
this animation is not sufficient to account for the large measure of expec- 
tation and confidence with which she entered upon the dominant campaign 
of 1864. There was- a special occasion of hope and reassurance. 

Despite the little benefit, beyond verbal assistance, which the Confed- 
erate cause had derived from the Democratic party in the North, and de- 
spite the losses of that party in the elections of 1863, it was observed, in 
the spring of 1864, that it was beginning to raise a peace platform for tho 
next Presidential election. That critical election was the point of a new 
prospect for the South. It was evident that there was a serious impa- 
tience in the North at the prolongation of the war ; and it was probable 
that if the South could maintain the status quo through anotlier campaign, 
and put before the North the prospect of another and indefinite term of 
hostilities, the present rulers at Washington would be discredited, the 
Democratic party get into power, and the Northern public be persuaded 
to accept as the conclusion of the war some favourable treaty, league, or 
other terms short of an actual restoration of the Union. It was said, with 
reason, in Richmond, that such was Northern impatience that the question 
of the war had simply become one of endurance on the part of the South ; 
tliat even without positive victories in the field, and merely by securing 
negative results in the ensuing campaign, the Democratic party would be 
able to overthrow the Administration at Washington, and to open negotia- 
tions with Richmond as between government and government. 

How seriously this argument was entertained in Richmond, may be 
understood from the fact that, simultaneously with the opening of the 
campaign in Virginia, President Davis prepared a mission to open com- 
munication with the Democratic party in the North, and to conduct in 
pace with the military campaign whatever political negotiation miglit be 
practicable in the North. The commissioners entrusted with this intrigue 
were Messrs. Thompson, of Mississippi, Holcombe, of Virginia, and Clay, 
of Alabama ; and they were to proceed to a convenient place on the North- 
ern frontier, and use whatever political opportunities the military events of 
the war might develop. They ran the blockade at Wilmington on the night 
of the day that the first gun on the Rapidan opened the momentous cam- 
paign of 1864. 

The bloody drama of the war was to recommence on the banks of thia 



GEN. UEANT, COM]V[AJST)EE-IN-CIIIEF. 505) 

stream, where Gen. Lee's army liad been stationed during the winter. On 
the Federal side a new and important actor was to appear on tlie scene. 
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who had had a long run of success in the West, had 
been appointed lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of all the Fed- 
eral forces, and was now to answer the expectation of his admirers by a 
campaign in Virginia and the repetition of the enterprise upon the Con- 
federate capital. The Richmond journals complimented him as a " man 
of far more energy and ability than any that had yet commanded the 
Army of the Potomac," but " his performances would bear no comparison 
wliatever to those of Gen. Lee." 

The new Federal commander in Yirginia was one of the most remark- 
able accidents of the war. That a man without any marked ability, cer- 
tainly without genius, without fortune, without influence, should attain the 
position of leader of all the Federal armies, and stand the most conspicu- 
ous person on that side of the war, is a phenomenon which would be inex- 
plicable among any other people than the sensational and coarse mobs of 
admiration in the North. Gen. Grant's name was coupled with success ; 
and this circumstance alone, without regard to merit of personal agency, 
without reference to any display of mental quality in the event, was sufli- 
cient to fix him in the admiration of the ^Northern public. It mattered 
not that Grant had illustrated no genius ; it mattered not that he had 
smothered Fort Donelson by numbers ; it mattered not that he had suc- 
ceeded at Yicksburg through the glaring incompetency of a Confederate 
commander, and by the weight of eighty thousand men against twenty 
odd thousand ; the North was prepared to worship him, without distin- 
guishing between accident and achievement, and to entitle him the hero 
of the war. 

It is a curious commentary on the justice of popular judgment, that 
while Grant was thus elevated to power and fame, the man who rescued 
him at Perryville and again at Shiloh, and whose heroism and genius had 
saved there the consequences of his stupidity, should be languishing in 
obscurity. This man was Gen. Buell. It was he who had contributed 
most to Grant's success, and whose masterly manoeuvres had done more to 
reclaim the Mississippi Yalley for the Federals than any other commander, 
and who now had been sacrificed to the spirit of political intrigue. At a 
time when popular passion clamoured for the desolation of the South, Gen. 
Buell persisted, with a firmness rarer and more admirable even than he 
exhibited in the crisis of battle, in conducting the war on the principles of 
humanity ; and by this noble moderation he incurred the displeasure of 
the faction that controlled the Government at Washington. The Radicals 
waged a war of extermination ; but he proposed, with the sagacity of a 
statesman, to conciliate the good will of the South, while he overcame ita 
resistance by an exertion of physical force. His system was too refined 



610 THE LOST CAUSE. 

for the comprehension, and too liberal for the vindictive temper of the 
dominant party, and he was forced to relinquish the command of tho 
superb army he had organized, and to resign a commission which he might 
have illustrated by splendid achievements. 

It is some consolation to reflect that the verdict of history is neither 
the sensation of a mob nor the fiat of a political faction. Gen. Grant will 
have his proper place surely and exactly assigned in the ultimate records 
of merit in the war. No one will deny this man credit for many good 
qualities of heart and great propriety of behaviour. He had that coarse, 
heavy obstinacy, which is as often observed in the Western backwoodsman 
as in a higher range of character. But he contained no spark of military 
genius ; his idea of war was to the last degree rude — no strategy, the 
mere application of the vis inertim / he had none of that quick perception 
on the field of action which decides it by sudden strokes ; he had no con- 
ception of battle beyond the momentum of numbers. Such was the man 
who marshalled all the material resources of the North to conquer the little 
army and overcome the consummate skill of Gen. Lee. He, who was de- 
clared the military genius of the North, had such a low idea of the contest, 
such little appreciation of the higher aims and intellectual exercises of war 
that he proposed to decide it by a mere competition in the sacrifice of 
human life. His plan of operations, as lie himself described it, was " to 
hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his re- 
sources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing 
left to liim but an equal submission with the loyal section of our common 
country to the Constitution and laws of the land." 

At Washington, the arrangements for the spring campaign of 1864 
were made, on the part of the government, to put forth its strength. In 
all the bureaus of the War Department supplies were provided on a scale 
of great magnitude, to meet any exigency that could be foreseen. The 
estimates were based upon an army organization of one million of men. 
The States were called upon to strengthen the armies by volunteers ; new 
drafts were ordered and put in execution throughout all the Northern 
States ; vast supplies ot" arms, ammunition, clothing, subsistence, medical 
stores and forage were provided and distributed in depots to meet the 
wants of the troops wherever they might operate ; horses, mules, wagons, 
railroad iron, locomotives and cars, bridge timber, telegraph cable and 
wire, and every material for transportation and communication of great 
armies under all conditions were supplied. Congress, with unstinting 
hand, voted large appropriations for recruiting, paying and supplying tho 
troops. 

Gen. Grant assumed command as Lieutenant-General of the armies of 
the United States on the ITtli day of March, 1864. The distribution of 
the Federal armies operating in Virginia was as follows : The Army of 



THE CONFEDEKATE ARMY ON THE KAPmAN. 511 

the Potomac, commanded by Major-General Meade, had its headquarters 
on the north side of the Rapidan. The Ninth Corps, under Major-Gen- 
eral Burnside, was, at the opening of the campaign, a distinct organization, 
but on the 24:th day of May, 186i, it was incorporated into the Army of 
the Potomac. The Army of the James was commanded by Major-Gen. 
Butler, whose headquarters were at Fortress Monroe. The headquarters 
of the Army of the Shenandoah, commanded by Major-Gen. Sigel, were 
at Winchester. 

The available strength of the enemy's force on the line of the Rapidan, 
including the Ninth Corps, was 141,166 men. Besides there were in what 
was known as the Department of Washington and the Middle Department 
47,Y51 men, available as reinforcements to the Army of the Potomac ; 
making tlierefore a total of about 180,000 men, as the force which Gen. 
Lee had to meet with less than forty thousand muskets I 

The Confederate army on the Rapidan, at the beginning of the campaign, 
consisted of two divisions of Longstreet's corps, Ewell's corps, A. P. Hill's 
corps, three divisions of cavalry, and the artillery. Ewell's corps did not 
exceed fourteen thousand muskets at the beginning of the campaign. On 
the 8th of May, the effective strength of Hill's corps was less than thirteen 
thousand muskets, and it could not have exceeded eighteen thousand in the 
beginning of the month. Longstreet's corps was the weakest of the three 
when all the divisions were present, and the two with him had just re- 
turned from an arduous and exhausting winter campaign in East Tennes- 
see. His effective strength could not have exceeded eight thousand mus- 
kets. Gen. Lee's whole effective infantry, therefore, did not exceed forty 
thousand muskets, if it reached that number. The cavalry divisions were 
weak, neither of them exceeding the strength of a good brigade. The 
artillery was in proportion to the other arms, and was far exceeded by 
Grant's, not only in the number of men and guns, but in weight of metal, 
and especially in the quality of the ammunition. Gen. Lee's whole effect- 
ive strength at the opening of the campaign was not over fifty thousand 
men of all arms. There were no means of recruiting the ranks of his 
army, and no reinforcements were received until the 23d of May. 

The Confederate public was but little aware of this terrible disparity 
of force ; but Gen. Lee was greatly affected by it as he contemplated the 
thin line which stood between the insolent host of the enemy and the 
Capital of the Confederacy. In April he issued a general order directing 
to be observed " a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer." All military 
duties, unless absolutely necessary, were to be suspended, and the chap- 
lains were desired to hold divine service in their regiments and brigades. 
Officers and men were " requested " to attend. This passed, the final prep- 
arations were made for the deadly struggle that, it was evident, would 
soon commence. " For your stricken country's sake, and ours," eald the 



512 THE LOST CAUSE. 

"wives, daughters, sisters, and friends" of tlie Confederate soldiers in a 
published address to them, " be true to youreelves and our glohious cause. 
Never turn your back on tlie flag, nor desert the ranks of honour, or the 
post of danger. You are constantly present to our minds. The women of 
the South bestow all their respect and affection on the heroes who defend 
them" 



THE BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. 

Gen. Lee was not idle in adopting all precautionary measures to meet 
the enemy. He strongly intrenched his lines, dug rifle-pits at the fords of 
the Rapid an, and kept a good force on the Gordons ville road so as to hold 
the communication open to Richmond by that route, while by the way of 
Fredericksburg he destroyed the bridges and rails in order to prevent, or 
make more diflicult, the enemy's advance in that direction. 

The works occupied by Lee's army on the Rapidan extended on the 
right three miles below Raccoon ford. Swell's coi-ps and Hill's lay behind 
those defences, and stretched out on each side of Orange Court-House, 
along a line of twenty miles. Longstreet occupied the country around 
Gordousville, thirteen miles southwest of the position on the Rapidan. 

Grant, having declined to assail Lee's front, determined to turn it by a 
movement on the Confederate right. On Tuesday night. May 3d, the 
Federal army broke up its encampment in the county of Culpepper, and 
at dawn of next morning crossed the Rapidan at the old fords — Ely's and 
Germania — and in much the same line that Meade attempted in the pre- 
vious I^ovember, and where Lee had caused Hooker to retreat a year be- 
fore. The Second corps, commanded by Gen, Hancock, in front, crossed 
at Ely's ford, the Fifth corps, under "Warren, took the Germania ford, 
wdiile the Sixth, Sedgwick's, followed immediately upon it. 

As soon as Gen. Lee ascertained that Grant had certainly cut loose 
from his base at Culpepper Court House, and was moving rapidly past his 
right, he put his own army in motion, sending Ewell's corps down the 
turnpike and A. P. Hill's down the plank road, and ordering Longstreet, 
who had arrived at Gordousville, to move his corps down on the right of 
Ewell's line of march, so as to strike the head of the enemy's column. 

The advance of Ewell's corps — Edward Johnson's division — arrived 
within three miles of Wilderness Run in the evening, and encamped. 
Rodes lay in his rear ; and Early was next at Locust Grove, all ready to 
strike at Grant's advance the next morning. At about six o'clock in tho 
morning of the 6th May the enemy was discovered by the skirmishers 
thrown out, and Johnson immediately pressed forward to gaia a hill where 
he proceeded to form his troops in line of battle. 



BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. 513 

The enemy advanced in snch order as was practicable in a tangled for- 
est. The Fifth corps, accompanied by two pieces of artillery, that came 
timnderiug along the turnpike, assailed the Confederate line at the inter- 
section of the road, deceiving, as it advanced, a terrible fusilade without 
any sign of wavering, the rear rank pressing forward those of the front, 
the attacking masses delivered from a forest of rifles a fast and furious fire 
upon Johnson's line. Closing in upon it with great spirit in front, and 
threatening to envelop it on its right, they succeeded, after a brief strug- 
gle, in forcing back part of the brigade of Gen. J. M. Jones that had been 
formed across the turnpike. Jones strove, in desperation, to rally his 
broken troops, but with no avail ; and, as the brave general was imploring 
his men to stop their flight, a ball struck him, and he fell from his saddle 
a bleeding corpse. 

The decisive moment of the battle was now at hand. Stewart moved 
from his position in the line of battle to close the gap left in it by the bri- 
gade of Jones. As the Federal masses poured through, his men rushed 
forward with a cheer ; and, driving them back by the impetus of their 
charge, cajDtured their guns. At the same time Ewell ordered Daniels' and 
Gordon's brigades of Kodes' division to form on the right and charge. 
Gordon, holding command of the movement, crushed through the enemy's 
first lines and captured as he went forward a whole regiment, men, ofiicers, 
and colors. Driving on furiously he struck back the Federal front in con- 
fusion upon its supports ; and scattering both like leaves before a storm, 
forced them off the field in utter rout for a mile and a half. 

Soon after the onslaught upon the Confederate front, the Sixth corps 
of the Federal army advanced upon its left flank. The attack here was 
repulsed by Pegram's and Hay's division. The furious onslaught of Hay's 
men did not expend itself until they had forced the enemy to retreat in 
confusion for nearly a mile. In advance of all others on that face of the 
attack, these splendid troops, having left nearly one-third of their number 
on the field, fell back with Pegram's gallant men to the general line of 
battle. 

Skirmishing continued outside the lines. Immediately before the close 
of the evening, the skirmishers of Pegram, on Johnson's left, came run- 
ning in, and soon afterwards his sharpshooters sprang back from their rifle- 
pits in his immediate front. A column, three lines deep, moved upon him 
from the depths of the forest, and, firing heavily as they came on, pressed 
towards his works furiously. His stanch Virginians, however, met the 
attack resolutely, and, covered partially by their works, hurled volley after 
volley in withering blasts, breast high, into its serried ranks. 

But the work of carnage was not yet sufiicient for Grant. In five lines 
a column renewed the attack after nightfall ; but did so without other re- 
sult than to increase terribly the hundreds of men that, dead or dying out- 
33 



514 'IHB U\<V vWlSK, 

side tlio Oontovlorato workts Inv weltennj; in tlioir gore. Pegraui tell in 
this la^t attack severelv >voin\vK\i. The ivpulse which he iriiidcd as ho 
tvlU cKvjevl the work of war for the dav on the K^ft, and witiu^inl the 
Coufeileratcs still in j^H^ssessiou of their iuipiv>veii position and advanced 
lino^ 

The rt»ults of the dav woro ih:\: the eneuiv had been boaton back jis 
jktVMi as he ad\"anctxl, with b>o;.v\ lv^^, iucludiuix two thous^iud prisoners 
and four giuis. Longstivo: r.o; having arrived, owing to the givater dis- 
lanet? he had to uiarvh, Cion. l.ee n^fn\int.\l fivni pivssing his advantage, 
and slept u^xmi the battle-ticld. His own loss was comparatively slight, 
his ti\>ops understanding how to take advantage of the rough country and 
entangled vtvkhIs in whicli they fought. Longstreet ivacheil a point ten 
miles tVom the battle-tield by the middle of the atUn-noon. but, owing to 
the peeuliar condition of the atuiosphejre, and the density of the forest, he 
'WT»$ unable to hear the rejvrt of Hill's and EweU's guns, and was ignorant 
that the two armies had been engagevl until midnight, when he ixvcived 
an order from Gen. Loe to cioss over to the plank rvn^d to the aid of IliU. 

It w^is two o'chvlv in the morning of the i>th when Lougstreot aroused 
Ids sleeping men from their bivouac, and marchcvl on to the tield of lv\tth\ 
HilFs troops "wrer« awaro of his approach, and that he was to take their 
place on the line, and. having been marching and lighting all the previous 
day. and sleeping but little that night, they got ready to retire as the head 
of Longstreet's corps reached the groimd. Unfortunately, Grant renewed 
the attack just at this time, threw Heth's and Wilcox's divisions of IliU'a 
corps into confusion, and pusheil them back u}x>n Longstreet's column, 
which had not yet deployed into line. 

The disordered ranks surged already within one himdred and fitly 
yards of the position of Gen. Leo, But at this moment three K^iments of 
Kershaw's division came into line, and this Spartan baud held the enemy 
in check until the remainder of the division and finally Longstreet's entire 
corps could be brouglit up. Then ensued a furious and bloody combat all 
along Longstreet's firont. His veteran corj>s, which had made the circuit 
of half the Confederacy within the last tAvelve months, never fought better 
or more successfully. Grant had taken advantage of the disorder among 
Hill's ttvv^ps, and hurled heavy masses upon the point, hoping to turn the 
Confederate right wing, and tlirow himself between Lee and Kichmond. 
He would have succeevlevl but for Longstreet's timely arrival. 

At 11 o'clock Long^treet was ordered, with some select brig;\des, to 
pas to the right and attack the enemy in flank. The order was promptly 
executed. Tailing suddenly upon Grant's lefV, he drove the enemy in 
eonAision, bending ids line back upon itself, and gaining the plank road a 
mile in advance of the scene of the recent conflict. 

The iVntnnes of the day •were evidently turned. Gen. Longsrreet novr 



UArn.l.H OK TIIK WII-bKKNKKH. 515 

moved forw.'inl with hh Htufl" to luko liin place at tlic licad of tlic advance ; 
and was received aH lie j>aHKed along IIkj moving inuKH willi Hlnriifi of up- 
plaiiKc. Ah lie galloped forward, Gen. JenkinH fipurrcd to his side to gruHp 
his lian«l, willi tlio pleaBure of an old friend, — for LongHtreet had but 
newly arrived from Bcveral moniliH' campaign in EaHtern Tenn(*8ee. Jiut, 
hardly had the mutual congratulationB pasBcd each other's lij>H, wIxmi a 
deadly volley from Malione's brigade, concealed in busljeH along tli(i joad 
— mistaking LongKtreet, JenkinH, and tlie rent, for a party of the flying foe 
— [Kjurcd into tlicra, at short range. JenkinH fell inntantly from his horws 
a lifeleHS cor]>se, while Longntreet received a ball that entered IiIh throat 
and pasHcd out througli his right nhouldc^r. lileeding profunely, lie wan 
helped from his horse so prostrated that fears were entertained of his im- 
mediate dcjath. l^laced on a litter, the wound(;d General was removed 
from the iield ; but feelde though he was from Iohh of blood, he did not 
fail to lift his hat from time to time as he passed down the column, in 
a^;knowledgment of its cheers of apjilanne and Hympathy, 

The fall of J.ongHtreet was an untimely event, and the delay it occa- 
sioned gave opportunity to the enemy to reform his line. The field was 
well contested on both sides ; but at one time the aspect of affairs wag so 
alarming that Gen. Lee had, as Fields' division cauje under fire, placed 
himself at the head of Gregg's brigade of Texans, With that devotion 
which constituted the great charm of his character, he ordered them to fol- 
low him in a charge upon a line of the cnamy, sweeping down upon his 
front. The response was not shouts. A grim and ragged soldier of the 
line raised his voice in determined remonstrance. lie was immediately 
followed by the rank and file of the whole brigade in positive refusal to 
advance until their beloved commander had gone to his proper position 
of safety. Yielding to this touching solicitude. Gen. Lee withdrew, while 
the brave Texans fulfilled the promise by which they ha^l urged his with- 
drawal, and, breasting a storm of bullets, drove the enemy on their front 
back to his entrenchments. What was the exposure of the devoted com- 
mander during the day, may be judged from the circumstances of the 
explosion of a shell under his own horse, the killirjg of the horse of his 
Adjutant-Gen., Lieut.-Col. Taylor, and the wounding of another officer 
attached to his person, Lieut.-Col. Marshall, — events which caused great 
and most affectionate anxiety in the army, and determined the troops t^j 
watch more carefully over a life in which they considered were bound up 
the fortunes of their country. 

So far the enemy had been driven back on the Confederate right, and 
was firmly held in check ; while on the left, Ew'ell, battling severely, and 
defeating an attempt of the enemy to outflank him, held his own, and 
joined his line of battle with that which ha^l been restored on the right 
■•^•ing. During the aftemcian Brig.-Gcn. Wofford, of Anderson's corpg, 



516 THE LOST CAUSE. 

was permitted, at his own request, to move upon tlie rear of the Federa. 
left wing. He got possession of their camps, destroyed and brought off a 
good deal of material, and created great consternation among the teamsters 
and quartermasters. About twilight Brig.-Gen. Gordon, of Swell's corps, 
attacked the enemy's left, caj)tured Gen. Seymour and a large portion ot 
his brigade, and excited a panic which put Grant's whole army on the 
verge of irretrievable rout. Brigade after brigade fled from the Federal 
works, and, attempting, one after another, to wheel around into line in 
order to check the advance, was borne back under the rapidity of Gor- 
don's movement. The woods in front were alive with masses of men, 
struggling to escape with life. Gordon swejDt all before him for a distance 
of two miles. But the forest through which he advanced was so dense 
with undergrowth, that by the nightfall he had become separated from his 
supports. He paused before he had completed a movement that came 
near completely routing the entire Federal right. The enterprise, not- 
withstanding its incompleteness, was crowned with brilliant success. The 
Confederate loss in that service numbered, in killed and wounded, but 
twenty-seven, while on the enemy's side Gens. Shaler and Seymour, with 
the greater part of their commands, were taken prisoners, and the entire 
Sixth corps of the Army of the Potomac had been broken up in panic. 

In these two days of terrible battle in the Wilderness the Confederate 
wounded, by the official reports of the surgeons, were estimated at six 
thousand, and their killed at less than one thousand. The wounds were 
comparatively slight, owing to the protection afforded by the trees and 
the absence of artillery, which could not be used in consequence of the 
dense and almost unbroken forest. The loss of the enemy was out of all 
proportion to what it had inflicted : 269 officers and 3,019 men killed ; 
1,017 officers and 18,261 men wounded, and 177 officers and 6,667 men 
missing — making an aggregate of 27,310. 

On the 7th May, both armies moved their position — Grant's to take an 
interiour road towards Richmond by the Spottsylvania Court-house, and 
Lee's, back, apparently, towards Orange Court-house, but in reality to 
reach Spottsylvania before the enemy. The advance of Lee arrived first 
and took up a good position, the main army quickly following. Tlie situ- 
ation which the Korthern newspapers interpreted as " the retreat of Lee" 
bore in every respect the evidences of his generalship and success. He 
had succeeded in throwing his entire army right across the path by which 
Grant must march if he would get " on to Richmond." — He had not only 
repulsed all his assaults at the "Wilderness, but held him there until he 
could throw his own army in front of him. It was a masterly perform- 
ance, and made it necessary for Grant to deliver battle there or make 
another effort to turn the Confederate position. 

To this movement there was an episode, which is chiefly remarkable 



DEATU OF GEN. J. E, B. STUART 517 

for the fall in it of Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, the brilliant commander of the 
Confederate cavalry in Yirginia. An expedition of Federal cavalry, com- 
manded by Gen. Sheridan, was directed to make a bold dash around Lee's 
fiank towards Richmond. It passed around the right flank of the Con- 
federates to the I^orth Anna River ; committed some damage at Beaver 
Dam ; moved thence to the South Anna and Ashland Station, where the 
railroad was destroyed ; and finally found its way to the James River, 
where it joined the forces of Butler. On the 10th May, a portion of Sher 
idan's command, under Custer and Merrill, were encountered by a body 
of Stuart's cavalry near Ashland, at a place called Yellow Tavern, on the 
road to Richmond, An engagement took place here. In a desperate 
charge, at the head of a column. Gen. Stuart fell, terribly wounded. He 
was immediately taken to Richmond, and every effort made to save his 
valuable life ; but in vain. He died the next day.* 

* From some memoirs of Gen. Stuart, collected from his staff officers, we extract some incidents 
indicative of the character of the man, designated as the " Prince Rupert of the Confederate 
Army : " 

" One of the marked traits of this preux chevalier was his indifference to danger, which im- 
pressed every one. It would be difficult to imagine a coolness more supreme. It was not that he 
seemed to defy peril — he appeared unconscious of it. At the battle of Oxhill, in September, 1862, 
he advanced a piece of artillery down the road to Fairfax Court-house, and suddenly found himself 
in the presence of a buzzing hornet's nest of Federal sharp-shooters, who rose from the tall weeds 
a few score yards distant, and poured a deadly fire into the cannoniers. Stuart was at the gim 
directing the firing, and sat on his horse, full front to the fire, with so perfect an air of unconscious- 
ness that it was hard to believe that he realized his danger. When a staff officer said, ' This fire 
is rather peculiar. General,' Stuart seemed to wake up, as it were, to whistling bullets, and said, 
indifferently, ' It is getting rather warm.' He met his death in this way, and the only matter for 
astonishment is that he was not killed long before. He was constantly on the most advanced line 
of skirmishers, cheering them on, the most conspicuous mark to the enemy. He used to laugh 
when he was warned against such exposure of himself, and said that he was not afraid of any ball 
' aimed at him ; ' but I know that he never expected to get through the war. He deeply deplored 
its existence, and said, one day, ' I would lay down my right haud and have it cut off at the wrist 
to end it.' But he was conscientious in his espousal of the Southern cause, and was ready to die 
for it. 

" The habitual temper of his mind toward his adversaries was cool and soldierly. Federal pris- 
oners were treated by him with uniform courtesy, and often left his headquarters declaring that they 
would never forget the kindness they had experienced. I remember an appeal once made to him 
by a prisoner, which amused everybody. One of his escort spoke roughly to the prisoner, when the 
latter, seeing the General, exclaimed : ' Gen. Stuart, I did not come here to be blackguarded,' at 
vrhich Stuart laughed good-humouredly, and reprimanded the person who had addressed the pris- 
oner. 

" At Yerdiersville, in August, 1862, Stuart stopped at a deserted bouse on the roadside, and lay 
down with his staff and escort, without videttes, pickets, or other precaution. The consequence was 
that he was aroused by the tramp of Federal cavalry close on him, and had just time to throw him- 
self, hatless, on his unbridled horse, leap the fence and fly. He left his hat, coat, and gloves, which 
his adversaries carried off in triumph ; but at Catlett's soon after retorted by capturing General 
Pope's coat and hat, which was a fair offset. 

" The gay, humorous, and high spirits of the man, did not wholly desert him even on the most 
serioas occasions. Xotliing was more common than to hear him humming a somj during an engage- 



518 THE LOST CAUSE. 



BATTLES OF SPOTTSTLVAJSTLA C0UKT-H0U8E. 

As Lee's advance — consisting of Longstreet's corps under Anderson- 
reached Spottsylvania Court-house, on the 9th May, the men had been 

ment, and I was reading the other day somewhere a soldier's description of a fight in Culpepper, ana 
what an electric effect was produced upon the infantry by the appearance of Stuart riding in front 
of them, singing gaily and cheering them on. At Chancellorsville, when Jackson fell, he was called 
to command the corps, and led the assault in person on the next morning. An eye witness says 
that he could not get rid of the idea that Henry of Navarre had come back, except that Stuart's 
' plume ' was black ! Everywhere, like Navarre, he was in front, and the men ' followed the 
feather.' At the risk, however, of spoiling this romantic picture, and passing from the subUme to 
what some persons may call the ridiculous, an additional fact may be stated, namely : That Gen. 
Stuart, attacking with Jackson's veteran corps, and carrying line after line of works, moved at the 
head of his men,. singing ' Old Joe Hooker, will you come out of the wilderness.' 

" There was nothing notable in Stuart's habits except his abstinence from all stimulants, coffee 
excepted. At his broad, paper-covered desk, in the long winter evenings, he busied himself not 
with ' official ' work only. A favourite amusement with him was the composition of parodies in 
verse, some of them exceedingly good. He was not a great reader. He was fonder of society, of tell- 
ing stories, jesting, and whiling away time with his staff. No boy could be merrier than Stuart, at 
such moments, and he dearly loved a practical joke. 

" No analysis of military movements or discussion of military endowments is here intended ; 
but it is almost impossible to separate Stuart, the man, from Stuart, the soldier. He was ready for 
a ' fight or a froUc,' and gifted by nature with an enormous animal physique, which enabled him to 
defy fatigue, whether produced by marching night and day, or dancing until dawn. Ambitious, 
fond of glory, and sensitive to blame or praise, he was yet endowed with a bold and independent 
spirit which enabled him to defy all enemies. He was warm-hearted, and never did man love friends 
more dearly. Stuart always seemed to be a perfect embodiment of the traits generally attributed 
to the English cavaliers. There was in him a rollicking love of frolic, a gallantry towards ladies, a 
fondness for bright colors, brilliant spectacles, and gay adventure, which made him resemble strongly 
the class of men who followed the fortunes of Charles the I., and at Naseby died rather than retreat 
or surrender. Stuart's nerve was of stern stuff, and under all that laughter there was a soul that no 
peril could touch. That bright blue eye looked into the very face of death without a quiver of the 
Ud, and dared the worst. A man more absolutely indifferent to danger, I believe, never lived ; and, 
like some chevalier of olden days, he rode to battle with his lady's glove upon his helm, humming 
a song, and determined to conquer or fall." 

The following account of Gen. Stuart's last moments was published in the Richmond news- 
papers : 

" About noon. President Davis visited his bedside and spent some time with the dying chief. 
In reply to the question put by the President, ' General, how do you feel ? ' he replied, ' Easy, but 
willing to die, if God and my country think I have fulfilled my destiny, and done my duty.' 

" During the day, occasional delirium attacked him, and, in his moments of mental wandering, 
his faculties were busy with the past. His campaigns on the Peninsula, his raid into Pennsylvania, 
his doings on the Eapidan, and his several engagements, were subjects that quickly chased them- 
selves through his brain. Fresh orders were given as if still on the battlefield and injunctions to 
his couriers to ' make haste.' Then he would wander to his wife and children, one of whom, his 
oldest boy, had died a year previous, while fighting on the Eappahannock, and in relation to whom 
Ke had said, when receiving a telegram that the boy was dying, ' I must leave my child in the hands 
of God ; my country needs me here ; I cannot come.' Then his mind would again carry him on to 
the battlefield ; and so it continued throughout the day. Occasionally his intellect was clear, and he 



J 



BATTLES OF SPOTTSTLVANIA COUET-HOUSE. 519 

marching rapidly, and for two miles had double-quicked it, and conse- 
quently were much jaded. But they were ready for work, tired as they 
were. Kershaw's division led the corps, and was the first to reach the 
ground. Two brigades were sent against a cavalry force of the enemy 
holding the Court-house, and two others were placed behind a thin rail 
fence and some frail obstructions which had been thrown across the road 



was then calm and resigned, though at times suffering the most acute agony. He would even, with 
his own hand, apply the ice that was intended to relieve the pain of his wound. 

" As evening wore on, mortification set in rapidly. In answer to his inquiry, he was told that 
death was fast approaching. He then said, ' I am resigned, if it be God's will, but I would hke to 
see my wife. But, God's will be done.' Several times he roused up, and asked if she had come. 
Unfortunately, she was in the country at the time, and did not arrive until too late. 

" As the last moments approached, the dying man, with a mind perfectly clear and possessed, 
then made a disposition of his effects. To Mrs. Gen. E. E. Lee, he directed that the golden spurs 
bl given as a dying memento of his love and esteem for her husband. To bis staff officers he gave 
his horses ; and other mementoes he disposed of in a similar manner. To his young son he left his 
Bword. He then turned to the Rev. Dr. Peterkin, of the Episcopal Church, of which he was a strict 
member, and asked him to sing the hymn commencing : 

• Roci of ages cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in thee.' 

" In this he joined with all the strength of voice liis failing powers permitted. He then prayed 
with the minister and friends around him ; and, with the words, ' I am going fast now. I am re- 
signed ; God's will be done,' yielded his fleeting spirit to Him who gave it. 

" The funeral of this much lamented and brave general took place on the 13th, at five o'clock, 
from St. James's Church, corner of Marshall and Fifth streets. 

" At the appointed hour the cortege appeared in front of the church, and the metallic coffin, con- 
taining the remains of the noble soldier, whose now silent voice had so often startled the enemy with 
his stirring battle-cry, was carried down the centre-aisle, and placed before the altar. Wreaths and 
a cross of evergreens, interwoven with delicate lilies of the valley, laurel, and other flowers of purest 
white, decked the coffin. 

" The pall-bearers were Gen. Bragg, Maj.-Gen. McCown, Gen. Chilton, Brig. -Gen. Lawton, Com- 
modore Forrest, Capt. Lee, of the navy, and Gen. George W. Randolph, formerly Secretary of War. 

" The scene was sad and impressive. President Davis sat near the front, with a look of grief 
upon his careworn face ; his cabinet officers were gathered around, while on either side were the 
Senators and Representatives of the Confederate Congress. Scattered through the church were a 
number of generals and other officers of less rank, among the former Gen. Ransom, commanding 
the Department of Richmond. Hundreds of sad faces witnessed the scene ; but the brave Fitz Hugh 
Lee and other war-wearied and war-worn men, whom the dead Stuart had so often led where the red 
battle was fiercest, and who would have given their lives for his, were away in the fight, doubtless 
striking with a double courage as they thought of their fallen general. 

" The short service was read by Rev. Dr. Peterkin, a funeral anthem sung, and the remains were 
carried out and placed in the hearse, which proceeded to Hollywood Cemetery, followed by a long 
train of carriages. 

" No military escort accompanied the procession, but the hero was laid in his last resting-place 
on the hillside, while the earth trembled with the roar of artillery and the noise of the deadly strife 
of armies — the one bent upon desecrating and devastating his native land, and the other, proudly 
and defiantly standing in the path and invoking the blessing of Heaven upon their cause, to fight in 
better cheer for the memory of such as Stonewall Jackson and J. E. B. Stuart." 



520 THE LOST CAUSE. 

by wliicli a force of Federal infantry was advancing. The latter fell into 
the en'our of supposing that the force behind the fence was dismounted 
cavalry, and rushed forward with the utmost confidence. The Confed- 
erates reserved their fire until their foes got within a few j^aces, and then, 
taking deliberate aim, gave them a volley which covered tlie ground with 
their slain. The combat was short and shai-p ; some of the Federals got 
to the fence, and actually used the bayonet ; but in less than half an hour 
they were driven rapidly back, leaving fi.ve hundi'ed dead and mortally 
wounded, and two hundred prisoners in the hands of the victorious Con- 
federates. 

On the lOtli May, the struggle was renewed at an early hour, TVarren's 
corps being the one most hotly engaged against the Confederates, though 
all were fighting heavily. About half-past 5 p. m. two divisions of Han- 
cock's Second corps crossed the Po River, and advanced against Lee's left, 
making a strong show of giving battle there. Lee, su^jposing the enemy 
was massing forces at that point, moved his troops during the night and 
next day to that quarter, but, in the morning of the 12th, it was found 
that Hancock was again in the centre, and vigorously assaulting Johnson's 
division. 

This division held a salient of the Confederate line ; and as the enemy, 
taking the forces within in flank, rushed over the angle, they were quickly 
in possession of the work, capturing most of Johnson's men along with 
their commander, and taking twenty pieces of artillery. Charge after 
charge was made by the Confederates to regain what ground they had lost. 
It was a conflict of sublime fury and terrible carnage. Tlie dead and 
wounded lay piled over each other, " the latter often underneath the 
former." What remained of Ewell's corps held the enemy in check with 
a courage that nothing could subdue. Gen. Hill moved down from the 
right, joined Ewell, and threw his divisions into the struggle ; Longstreet 
came on from the extreme left of the Confederate line ; it was a dead-lock 
of slaughter, in which neither side gained ground, and the intervening 
spaces were piled with the slain. At the close of the day the enemy held 
about three hundred yards of the Confederate works ; he had taken twenty- 
five pieces of artillery and about two thousand men in Johnson's division ; 
he had inflicted a loss of about six or seven thousand ; but his own loss 
was stated at eighteen thousand men, and at this cost he had purchased 
what the Northern newspapers called a " brilliant victory," but of which 
Gen. Grant had been candid enough to state : " The advantage gained did 
not prove decisive." 

Thus, without decisive results — certainly without any appreciable ad- 
vantage on the ^Northern side — ^liad been fought a series of battles such as 
liad never been compressed into so many days in the history of man, and 
such as had never before been exhibited by a single army, contending 



GEN. BDTLEe's movement AGAINST EICHMOND. 521 

against an adversary more than tliree times its numbers. In those days 
Lee's army made its surpassing record of heroism. Grant was not shamed. 
The Moloch of the North had not yet been sated. The great military 
genius that was to resolve generalship) into the fierce and brutal consump- 
tion of human life, who had taken the field with triple Lee's numbers, 
'found it necessary, after the first series of conflicts to call for reinforce- 
ments, and that before his adversary had received one additional musket 
for his own thinned ranks. From the 13th to the 18th May, Grant con- 
sumed the time in manoeuvi-ing and awaiting the arrival of reinforcements 
from Washington. He attempted to compose the anxiety of the authori- 
ties there by a display of resolution. He telegraphed to President Lin- 
coln : " I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." 



OPERATIONS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF EICHMOND. 

While Grant was engaged on the Eapidan, there were other move- 
mens in progress which were parts of his combination, and which belong 
to the great military drama in Virginia. 

The column of Butler — what was known as the Army of the James — 
was the most important correspondent of his movement, intended to oper- 
ate against Richmond on the south side. In advance of the movements on 
the Rapidan, the following letter of instructions was addressed to Gen. 
Butler, explaining the part of the campaign against Richmond as- 
signed to him : 

" Fort Monroe, Va., Jpi-il 2, 1864. 

" General : In the spring cami)aign, which it is desirable shall commence at as early 
a day as practicable, it is proposed to have co-operative action of all the armies in the 
field, as far as this object can be accomplished. 

" It will not be possible to unite our armies into two or three large ones to act as so 
many units, owing to the absolute necessity of holding on to the territory already taken 
from the enemy. But, generally speaking, concentration can be practically effected by 
armies moving to the interiour of the enemy's country from the territory they have to 
guard. By such movements they interpose themselves between the enemy and the coun- 
try to be guarded, thereby reducing the number necessary to guard important points, or 
at least occupy the attention of a part of the enemy's force, if no greater object is gained. 
Lee's army and Eichmond being the greater objects towards which our attention must 
be directed in the next campaign, it is desirable to unite all the force we can against 
them. The necessity of covering Washington with the Army of the Potomac and of 
covering your Department witli your army makes it impossible to unite these forces at the 
beginning of any move. I propose, therefore, what comes nearest this of anything that 
seems practicable. The Army of the Potomac will act from its present base, Leo's army 
being the objective point. You will collect all the forces from your command that can be 
spared from garrison duty, I should say not less than twenty thousand effective men — to 
operate on the south side of James Ptiver, Richmond being your objective pomt. To the 



522 THE LOST CAUSE. 

force you already have will be added about ten thousand men from South Carolina, un« 
der Maj.-Gen. Gillmore, who will command them in person. Maj.-Gen. W. F. Smith ia 
ordered to report to you, to command the troops sent into the field from your own De- 
partment. 

" Gen. GiUmore will be ordered to report to you at Fortress Mouroe, with all the 
troops on transports, by the 18th instant, or as soon thereafter as practicable. Should 
yo 1 not receive notice by that time to move, you will make such disposition of them and 
your other forces as you may deem best calculated to deceive the enemy as to the real 
move to be made. 

" "When you are notified to move, take City Point with as much force as possible. 
Fortify, or rather entrench, at once, and concentrate all your troops for the field there as 
rapidly as you can. From City Point directions cannot be given at this time for your 
further movements. 

"The fact that has already been stated — that is, that Richmond is to be your objective 
point, and that there is to be co-operation between your force and the Army of the Po- 
tomac — must be your guide. This indicates the necessity of your holding close to the 
south bank of the James River as you advance. Then, should the enemy be forced into 
his entrenchments iu Richmond, the Array of the Potomac would follow, and by means 
of transports tlie two armies would become a unit. 

" All the minor details of your advance are left entirely to your direction. If, how- 
ever, you think it practicable to use your cavalry south of you so as to cut the i-ailroad 
about Hicks' Ford, about the time of the general advance, it would be of immense ad- 
vantage. 

" You will please forward for my information at the earliest practicable day, all or- 
ders, details, and instructions you may give for the execution of this order. 

" U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General. 

''Maj.-Gen. B.F. Butler:' 

From tliis exposition of Grant's designs upon the Confederate capital, 
it appears that he calculated to fight Lee between Culj)epper and Rich- 
mond, and failing to defeat him away from his base, to make a junction 
with Butler's army on the James Kiver, with the prospect that the latter 
would be able to invest Richmond on the south side, with its left resting 
on the James above the city. 

But there was yet another part of Grant's ambitious and sweeping plan 
of operations in Virginia. He might take Richmond, without capturing 
the Government machinery, and without overthrowing Lee's army. In 
that view, further operations were necessary to isolate Richmond, and de- 
stroy its raih'oad communications. Gen. Sigel was therefore directed to 
organize all his available force into two expeditions, to move from Beverly 
to Charleston, under command of Gens. Ord and Crook, against the East 
Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. Subsequently, Gen. Ord, having been 
relieved at his own request, Gen. Sigel was instructed at his own sugges- 
tion, to give up the expedition by Beverly, and. to form two columns, one 
under Gen. Crook, on the Kanawha, numbering about ten thousand men, 
and one on the Shenandoah, numbering about seven thousand men ; tho 
one on the Shenandoah to assemble between Cumberland and the ShenaU' 



OPEKATIONS IN WESTERN VIRGINIA. 523 

doali; and the infantry and artillery moved to Cedar Creek with such 
cavaliy as could be made available at the moment, to threaten the enemy 
in the Shenandoah Yalley, and advance as far as possible ; while Gen. 
Crook would take possession of Lewisburg with part of his force, and move 
down the Tennessee Eailroad, doing as much damage as he could. 

Gen. Butler moved his main force up the James River, in pursuance 
of instructions, on the 4th May, Gillmore having joined him with the Tenth 
Corps. On the 5th he occupied, without opposition, both City Point and 
Bermuda Hundred. On the 6th he was in position with his main army, 
and commenced entrenching. On the Yth he made a reconnoissance 
against the Petersburg and Richmond Railroad, destroying a bridge seven 
miles from the former place, from which he took the conceit that he had 
now got well to the rear of the Confederate capital, and held " the key to 
the back-door of Richmond." He telegraphed to Washington : " We have 
landed here, entrenched ourselves, destroyed many miles of railroad, and 
got a position which, with proper supplies, we can hold out against the 
whole of Lee's army ! " This boast was to come to a singular conclusion. 

In the month of April, the services and command of Gen. Beauregard 
had been called into requisition from Charleston to strengthen the defences 
around Richmond. On the 21st April, he passed through Wilmington 
with a large body of troops, and assumed command of the district on the 
south and east of Richmond. On the 16th May he attacked Butler in his 
advanced position in front of Drewry's Bluff. The action was sharp and 
decisive. Butler was forced back into his entrenchments between the forks 
of the James and Appomattox Rivers ; and Beauregard, entrenching 
strongly in his front, covered the railroads, the city, and all that was val- 
uable to him, Butler's army was thus effectually cut off from all further 
operations against Richmond, as much so, wrote Gen. Grant, " as if his 
anny had been in a bottle strongly corked." 



OPERATIONS IN THE KANAWHA AND SHENANDOAH VALLEYS. 

While Butler was thus neutralized, the movement in the Kanawha and 
Shenandoah Yalleys, under Sigel, was to end in disaster. Gen. Crook, 
who had the immediate command of the Kanawha expedition, divided his 
forces into two columns, giving one, composed of cavalry, to Gen. Averill. 
They crossed the mountains by separate routes. Averill struck the Ten- 
nessee and Virginia Railroad, near Wytheville, on the 19th May, and, 
proceeding to New River and Christiansburg, destroyed the road, several 
important bridges and depots, including Kew River Bridge, forming a 
junction with Crook at Union. Gen. Sigel moved up the Shenandoah 
Valley, and on the 15th was encountered near Newmarket by Gen. Breck 



524 ""ilF, LOST CAUSE. 

inridge, who drove the enemy across the Shenandoah, captured six pieces 
of artillery, and nearly one thousand stand of small arras, and inflicted 
upon him a heavy loss ; Sigel ahandoning his hospitals and destroying the 
larger portion of his train. This signal defeat of Sigel was the occasion 
of his removal, and the appointment of Hunter to take command of the 
forces with a larger design, reaching to Lynchburg and Charlottesville, 
the operations of which, however, were reserved for another month. 

The secondary parts of the operations of the month of May against 
Richmond having thus failed, Gen. Grant, despite his expressed determi- 
nation to fight all summer on the line he held at Spottsylvania, proposed 
a movement to the l^orth Anna River, by which he hoped to flank the 
little army of Lee, that he no longer could hope, even by the " hammer- 
ing " process, to beat in the open field. Previous, however, to the com- 
mencement of this movement, he made an assault, on the 19th May, on 
Ewell's line, with the view of turning Lee's left ; but this failed, and the 
Federals returned to their camps after a heavy loss. On the night of the 
21st the movement to the North Anna was commenced. Gen. Lee was 
thus necessarily obliged to evacuate his position on the Po, and, by an 
admirable movement, took up a new position between the North and 
South Anna Rivers before Grant's army had reached its new destination. 

Foiled again, and finding his agile adversary again in his path. Grant 
found it necessary, on the 24th May, to make another flank movement, by 
recrossing the ISTorth Anna, and marching easterly towards the Pamunkey. 
To cover his plans, an attack was made on Lee's left, while a portion of 
Sheridan's cavalry tore up the Central Railroad. But the great Confed 
erate was fully master of the situation, and could not be easily blinded. 
He comprehended Grant's tactics ; he was as prompt in his movements ; 
and he was far more skilful in his strategy than the Federal commander. 
Accordingly, no sooner did Grant's army, on the 28th, arrive at Ilanover- 
town, on the Pamunkey, fifteen miles northeast of Richmond, than it was 
found the Confederates were in line of battle, from Atlee's Station, on the 
railroad, ten or eleven miles north of Richmond to Shady Grove, eight or 
nine miles north-northeast of the capital. The next day. Grant's forces 
were across the Pamunkey, marching towards Richmond ; and reinforce- 
ments from Butler's army, on the James River, were arriving at "White 
House, which once formed the Federal base of supplies. 

The singular fortune of war had again made the Peninsula a deadly 
'>attle-ground. One month had hardly elapsed since the campaign had 
begun ; and its record of carnage in this brief time was unsurpassed, while, 
on the other hand, never, jn such a space, had such a sum of glory been 
achieved as that which now illuminated the arms of Lee. When he stood 
in array against Grant at the Rapidan, his force was not more than fifty 
thousand men. It was this force which had compelled Grant, after the 



SPLENDID GENEKALSniP OF LEE. 525 

fighting at the Wilderness and aronnd Spottsylvania Court-house, to 
wait six days for reinforcements from Washington before he could move, 
and had baffled his favourite plan of reaching Richmond. Lee never re- 
ceived a single item of reinforcement until the 23d of May. At Hanover 
Junction, he was joined by Pickett's division of Longstreet's corps, one 
small brigade of Early's division of Ewell's corps, which had been in North 
Carolina with Hoke, and two small brigades, with a battalion of artillery 
under Breckinridge, The force under Breckinridge, which Grant esti- 
mated at fifteen thousand, did not exceed two thousand muskets. When 
he fell back to the lines immediately about Richmond, Gen. Lee was joined 
there by Hoke's division from Petersburg ; but at the same time Breckin- 
ridge's force had to be sent back into the Shenandoah Valley, and Ewell's 
corps, with two battalions of artillery, had to be detached under Gen, 
Early's command to meet the demonstrations of Hunter upon Lynchburg. 
This counterbalanced all reinforcements. The foregoing statement shows, 
indeed, that the disparity of forces between the two armies in the begin- 
ning of the campaign was never lessened after they reached the vicinity 
of Richmond and Petersburg, but, on the contrary, was largely increased. 
It has well been asked, by a commentator on these remarkable facts 
" What would have, heen the result, if the resources in men and munitions 
of war of the two commanders had heen reversed f " 

The fact was that Grant, notwithstanding his immense preponderance 
of men and material, had, after losses almost equalling Lee's numbers, 
utterly failed in his design of defeating the heroic Army of JSTorthern Vir- 
ginia away from its base, and pushing the fragments before him down to 
Richmond, and had been forced to cover up his failure by adopting the 
derided Peninsular scheme of McClellan. The Northern public, however, 
professed to find occasion of exultation in the reflection that he was 
within a few miles from Richmond, without considering that Lee's army 
was as much a protection there as a hundred miles away, and that Grant 
had only by a monstrous circuit, reached a point, where, ascending the 
waters of Virginia, he might have landed at the very beginning of the 
campaign without loss or opposition. It was a remarkable exhibition of 
the gaseous nonsense of New York that a mob of twenty-five thousand 
persons should have assembled in that city " to render the thanks of the 
nation to Gen Grant " for a feat which was, simply and at once, absurd, 
disastrous, shocking, and contemptible. 



CHAPTER XXXIl. 

POSITION OF THE AE1IIE3 AROUND EICHMOND, JUNE 1, 1864. — MANCEUVEE3 FOE POSITION. — 
BATTLE OF COLD HAEBOUE. — EASY REPULSE OF THE ENEMY. — GRANT DECIDES TO CE083 
THE EIVEB, AND ATTEMPT THE SOUTH SIDE OF RICHMOND. — WHY GEN. LEE DID NOT AT- 
TEMPT TO ATTACK HIM IN THE MOVEMENT. — BATTLES OF PETEESBURG. — TWO ATTACKS OF 
THE ENEMY REPULSED. — BUTLER ADVANCES HIS POSITION, AND IS DRIVEN BACK. — GRANT 
TURNS HIS ATTENTION FROM THE FORTIFICATIONS TO THE RAILROADS. — DEMONSTRATIONS 
ON THE WELDON AND DANVILLE ROADS. — DEFEAT OF SHERIDAN's EXPEDITION ON THE 
RAILROADS NORTH OF RICHMOND. — OPERATIONS WEST OF THE BLUE RIDGE. — HUNTER'S 
MOVEMENT. — HE CAPTURES STAUNTON. — HE ADVANCES UPON LYNCHBURG. — HE IS DE- 
FEATED, AND DRIVEN INTO WESTERN VIRGINIA. — GEN. JOHN MOEGAn's EXPEDITION INTO 
KENTUCKY. — ITS DISASTEOUS CONCLUSION. — PARTICULARS OF THE MURDER OF GEN. MOR- 
GAN IN EAST TENNESSEE. — EARLy's INVASION OP MARYLAND. — DARING OF GEN. LEE. — 
WHAT HE PROPOSED BY SENDING EARLy's COLUMN INTO THE NORTH. — GEANt's PREPARA- 
tions against this movement. — battle of monocacy bridge. — defeat of " lew " 
Wallace's command. — eaelt advances upon Washington. — skirmish in feont of 
fort stevens. — early declines to attack the federal capital and retreats. — 

QUESTIONS AS TO THE STRENGTH OF WASHINGTON. — RESULTS OF EAELY's EXPEDITION. — ITS 
EFFECT ON THE ARMIES OPEEATING ABOUND RICHMOND. — THE MINE FIASCO AT PETERS- 
BURG. — THREE ELEMENTS IN THE PLAN OF ATTACK. — DESCRIPTION OF THE MINE. — THE 
EXPLOSION AND A " FEU d'eNFER." — THE ASSAULTING COLUMN PAUSES IN THE CRATER. — 

TERRIBLE SCENES OF CARNAGE. — THE MISERABLE FAILURE. COMMENTARY OF THE NEW 

YORK " TIMES." 

The first of June, 1864, found the position of the two armies around 
Richmond as follows : Grant was between the Chickahominy and the Pa- 
inunkej, with his left thrown forward to Mechanicsville, his right with- 
drawn to White House, and his reserve massed in rear of liis left, and Rich- 
mond somewhat behind his left flank. Lee was posted from Atlee's Station, 
extending on his left to Gaines' Mill, with outposts as far as Coal Harbour. 
His position conformed to that of 1862 ; and, indeed, the whole Confederate 
line of battle was on ground occupied by both the armies at that time. 

On falling back to Richmond it had been the fij'st concern of Gen. Lee 
to secure positions he knew, from the battles of 1862, to be good ones. 



BATTLE OF COLD HAKBOUK. 527 

He, accordingly, sent forward to the right Kershaw's and Hoke's divisions 
of Anderson's corps, with orders to occupy the eminences around Gaines' 
Mill and Cold Harbour. This position had been previously carried by some 
Federal cavalry. But on arrival of Hoke's division, shortly afterwards 
reinforced by McLaws', the Confederates obtained possession of the desired 
posts. At the same time Breckinridge and JMahone, of Hill's corps, were 
equally successful in gaining certain advanced positions. 

On the 2d June, as Grant continued to develop his left flank, the Con- 
federates were put in motion on a parallel line, while Early, commanding 
Ewell's corps, swung round, late in the afternoon, and took the enemy in 
flank, drove him from two lines of entrenchments, and inflicted great loss. 
Meanwhile Breckinridge, supported by Wilcox, proceeded, under orders 
from Lee, to attack the advanced Federals, now on the extreme right at 
Turkey Hill, and there succeeded in driving them away. Thus another 
important position was obtained by Lee ; this hill commanding the ap- 
proaches from the north and east to the line of the Chickahominy. Mean- 
while Grant was getting his troops into position for a decisive action. 
Early in the morning of June the 3d, his army, now extending from Tolo- 
patomy Creek, across the road from Cold Harbour to the Chickahominv, 
advanced in full line of battle, upon the Confederates. 



BATTLE OF COLD HARBOUK. 

The Federal line of battle ran in the following order, from right to left : 
Burnside, Warren, Smith, Wright, and Hancock. The latter was oj^posed 
by Breckinridge's command on Lee's extreme right ; Ewell's corps held 
the extreme left opposite Burnside ; and Hill's corps was in reserve. The 
attack was led by Hancock, who momentarily carried the position held by 
Breckinridge's troops, but was severely repulsed, as this part of the line 
was reinforced by Milligan's Florida brigade, and the Maryland battalion. 
This was the only corps of the enemy that came in contact with the Con- 
federate works. The two corps on the right of Hancock were repulsed ; 
and Warren and Burnside staggered on the line of the rifle-pits. The fact 
was that Grant, in testing the question, whether Lee's army had or had 
not been demoralized by its experience from the Kapidan to the James, 
found his own army so incapable, that he was compelled to withdraw it in 
sheer despair. He " mounted his horse and rode along the lines to ascer- 
tain from the different commanders the actual state of things in their im- 
mediate front. He returned leisurely, absorbed in thought, and it was 
evident that the attempt would not be renewed." Of the results of the 
day, he wrote : " Our loss was heavy, while that of the enemy, I have rea- 
son to believe, was comparatively light." The fact was that the report of 



528 THE LOST CAUSE. 

the adjutant-general at Washington showed a loss of seven thousand five 
hundred men in three days' operations on the Chickahominy, the greater 
portion of which occurred, of course, in the general action of the 3d of 
June. 

For several days after the battle of Cold Harbour there was compara- 
tive quiet, and some unimportant skirmishes. During the night of the Sth 
Grant withdrew his right wing about two miles, and placed it behind a 
swamp, which protected both the flank and front of that portion of his 
army. The severe experience of the 3d satisfied him that Richmond could 
not be carried by a cou^ de main, and could no longer be approached with 
advantage from the north. On this side lay a difficult river and five miles 
of earthworks, stretched to the Confederate capital. Here, too, the enemy 
had to hold the Fredericksburg railroad, a long, vulnerable line, which 
would exhaust much of his strength to guard, and which would have to be 
protected to supply his army — a situation which would have left open to 
the Confederates all their lines of communication on the south side of the 
James. A full survey of all the ground satisfied Grant that he could not 
operate with advantage north and east of Richmond ; he determined to 
make another movement by Lee's left flank, throw his army over James 
River, and seize Petersburg, hoping thus to cut ofi" all the Confederate sup- 
plies, except by the canal ; while his cavalry could be sent to Charlottes- 
ville and Gordons ville, to break up the railroad connection between Rich- 
mond and the Shenandoah Yalley and Lynchburg. 

On the 12th June, Grant completed his preparations to abandon the 
late field of operations about the Chickahominy, cross the James River, 
and occupy the south side towards Petersburg. To do this he had to make 
another movement round Lee's right, extending as far as Bottom's Bridge, 
and march down the Chickahominy as far as the next crossings at Long's 
and Jones' bridges. The movement was efi'ected with skill. On June 13, 
the advance had reached Wilcox's landing on the James, near Charles' 
City Court-house, and the next day Grant's whole army was safely trans- 
ferred to the opposite shore. 

Gen. Lee did not attack Grant on his movement to the James. He 
was probably unable to do so. Richmond and Petersburg had both to be 
guarded, not only against the Army of the Potomac, but also that of But- 
ler, who had come up the river in heavy force to co-operate with Grant ; 
while an important detachment of Confederate force, as we shall see, had 
to be ready to move towards Lynchburg to meet the advance of a third 
ai-my in that direction. It had been the expectation of Grant to make an 
easy capture of Petersburg, which Butler had previously failed to take, 
laying the blame of defeat on his subordinate, Gillmore. But he found 
that Lee had anticipated him in this new plan of operations ; that Peters- 
burg was well able to withstand a siege ; that additional fortifications had 



BATTLES OF rETEESBCKG. 529 

been promptly erected around it and on the banks of tlie Appomattox, 
while Drewry's Blufi', also, afforded a good and strong point of defence. 



BATTLES OF PETEESBUKG. 

Grant found it now necessary to " hammer " at Petersburg, which, 
properly regarded, was then a mere outpost of the Confederate capital, for 
even if he took tlie first, or rather the line of works that commanded it, 
similar works, around Richmond, twenty miles off, confronted him. 
Smith's corps, of Butler's command, having disembarked at Bermuda 
Hundred on the 14th June, moved rapidly upon Petersburg, and made an 
assault on the batteries covering the approaches to the town on the north- 
east. He got possession of this line of works, but was too timid to push 
his advantage, and waited the coming up of the Second Corps, under Han- 
cock, two divisions of which arrived during the night, and relieved a part 
of Smith's line in the captured works. An attack was ordered in the even- 
ing of the next day, Burnside's corps having also come up and gone into 
position on the left. Three assaults were made Avitli disastrous result ; the 
Confederates assuming the aggressive, driving the enemy from his breast- 
works at Howlett's House, and ojDcning upon him an enfilading fire, in 
which a large portion of a brigade that had sought shelter in a ravine was 
»aptured by a Georgia regiment. 

The next day the Fifth Corps was got up, and a third attack was made 
by the enemy four corps strong. It was repulsed at all parts of the line : 
and, again assuming the offensive, the Confederates made an attack on 
Burnside's line of advanced rifle-pits, drove the enemy back upon his sup- 
ports, and remained in possession until day-light, when they retired to 
their own works. 

Meanwhile Butler, taking advantage of the Confederates in his front 
having been withdrawn to Petersburg, sallied from behind his entrench- 
ments and advanced towards the i-ailroad, intending to tear it up. Lee 
promptly prepared for him. The lines necessarily vacated by Beaure- 
gard, when he had to fiill back and defend Petersburg, had already been 
taken possession of by the Federals ; but directly Butler made his attempt, 
Anderson was despatched with his corps from Richmond to repulse him. 
This was done most effectively — Pickett's division, the heroes of Gettys- 
burg, again making here an impetuous charge, capturing the breastworks of 
the enemy. AVe may imagine how unfortunate Butler was in his ofiicial 
announcement of great victories, for on the very day that he despatched 
that he had destroyed the communication with Richmond, Gen. Lee was 
sending, by the railroad, troops from the capital for the defence of Peters- 
burg. ^ 
34 



530 THE LOST CAUSE. 

The result of all these engagements, -wliicli had cost Grant, by an 
official calculation, 9,G65 men, was that the Confederates were still in firm 
possession of their works covering Petersburg, and that Grant was left no 
other resource than to proceed to envelop the town as far as possible with- 
out attacking fortifications. 

The immediate operations of his army appear now to have degenerateil 
to an attempt upon the railroads. On the 22d an attempt was made by 
two divisions of cavalry to get possession of the Weldon railroad ; but when 
a portion of the command had reached the Jerusalem plank-road, A. 
P. Hill's corps and Anderson's successfully encountered them, and 
drove them back with severe loss. Gen. "Wilson, however, succeeded in 
reaching the railroad at Ream's station, below where the combatants were 
engaged, and tore up some of the track. Wilson, joined by Kautz, then 
struck across to the Southside railroad, doing some damage, and finally 
came upon the Danville track, having had a sharp engagement with a 
small Confederate force near Nottoway Court-house. Continuing along 
the Danville railroad to the southwest, they arrived at the covered bridge 
over the Staunton river, in tlie evening of the 24th. Here a body of Yir- 
ffinia and North Carolina militia met them, and after a brisk encounter 
Wilson and Kautz had to retire. This was the limit of their raid. They 
returned as rapidly as they could, but at Peam's station one thousand pris- 
oners and all the enemy's artillery and trains were captured by a Confed- 
erate force under Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee. Kautz's knowledge of the 
country enabled him to escape. He, with his shattered command, reached 
camp on the oOtli June, while Wilson, with his men in wretched condition, 
did not arrive till next day. 

North of Pichmond, Grant's designs on the railroads were no more suc- 
cessful, and the expedition of Sheridan already noticed as sent out to de- 
stroy the railroads between Pichmond and the Shenandoah Y alley and 
Lynchburg, had met with disaster, without accomplishing a single impor- 
tant result. He had been intercepted at Trevillian station while moving 
on the Gordonsville road ; and reaching the latter place by a circuit, was 
twice repulsed by the infantry in the rifle-pits there, and pleading the 
" want of ammunition " was compelled to withdraw his command across 
the North Anna and retreat to the White House. 

The month of June thus closed with Lee master of the situation around 
Pichmond and Petersburg. In the same month there were other notable 
successes to strengthen the capital, and public attention was turned to 
events occurring in other parts of Virginia, the result of which was to open 
the Shenandoah Yalley, that famous avenue into the territory of the 
North, and to afford Gen. Lee the opportunity of an important diversion 
We shall see, indeed, that this ready and resourceful commander, with 
Grant fully occupied in the south of Virginia, was yet enabled quietly! 



OPERATIONS WEST OF THE BLUE EIDGE. 531 

and skilfully to send another army of invasion into tlie Nortliorn 
States. 



OPERATIONS WEST OF THE BLUE RIDGE. 

At the last reference to operations west of the Blue Eidge, Gen. IIuii- 
ter — the same who had made himself famous by his negrophilism in the 
department of Beaufort, South Carolina — ^liad taken command of the Fed- 
eral forces there, and was about to enter upon an enlarged campaign. 
That campaign was dictated by Grant. It indicated the extension of the 
auxiliary movement" against Eichmond to as many points as Staunton, 
Lynchburg, Charlottesville and Gordonsville — the general design being to 
cut the communications of Richmond, in view of which Hunter -was to 
move on the point that best invited attack. 

West of the Blue Ridge the Confederate force was small, disarranged 
and altogether unequal to meet these formidable enterprises of the enemy. 
It consisted of a few small brigades of inferiour cavalry, about two regi- 
ments of infantry, and a small brigade (Vaughan's) of dismounted troops 
acting as infantry. To supply the place of Breckinridge, who had gone to 
the Richmond and Petersburg lines, McCausland's little force, from Dub- 
lin, was sent to the front of Staunton, and Gen. William E. Jones was 
ordered to take all the troops he could move from Southwestern Yirginia 
to the same position in the lower valley. Accordingly, Gen. Jones not 
only got together all the infantry west of the New River, but having dis- 
mounted Vaughan's brigade of cavalry also, took all to Staunton, leaving 
nothing in the extreme southwest but a few disjointed bodies of cavalry 
and Morgan's command to meet Burbridge, coming in from Kentucky. 

Gen. Hunter, having received his instructions from Grant, immediately 
took up the offensive, and moving up the Shenandoah Yalley, met Jones' 
little command, on the 5th June, at Piedmont, Here the Confederates 
were overpowered with the loss of more than one thousand prisoners, and 
of their commander, who, with hat in hand, was cheering his men when 
he fell, pierced through his head by a minie ball. On the 8th, Hunter 
formed a junction with Crook and Avcrill at Staunton, from which place 
he moved, by way of Lexington, direct on Lynchburg. He reached this 
place on the 16th June. 

It now became necessary for Gen. Lee to detach a considerable portion 
of his force to meet this distant demonstration of the enemy, and to select 
a commander, the decision, energy and rapidity of whose movements might 
overthrow Hunter, and possibly make an opportunity to pass a column, 
however small, through the Valley of Virginia to threaten the Federal 
capital. For this work Gen. Early was selected. He had latterly com- 



532 THE rOBT CATJSE. 

manded Ewell's corps, and with the great portion of this, he moved rapidly 
by the Orange and Alexandria raiboad to Lynchbnrg. 

On the 18th June llnnter made an attack on the south side of Lynch< 
burg, which was easily repulsed. The next day the Confederates attacked, 
drove him in confusion, took thirteen of his guns, pursued him to Salem, 
and forced him to a line of retreat into the mountains of Western Vir- 
ginia. Gen. Grant wrote : " Had Gen. Hunter moved by way of Char- 
lottesville, instead of Lexington, as his instructions contemplated, he w^ould 
have been in a position to have covered the Shenandoah T alley against the 
enemy, should the force he met have seemed to endanger it. If it did not, 
he would have been within easy distance of the James Kiver canal, on the 
main line of eonmiunication between Lynchburg and the forces sent for its 
defence." As it was, no sooner did Gen. Early ascertain that Hunter waa 
retreating by the way of the Kanaw^ha Kiver, thus laying the Shenandoah 
Valley open for an expedition into Maryland and Pennsylvania, than he 
returned northward and moved down that valley. 

While the Shenandoah Valley was thus opened. Gen. John Morgan had 
done his part in breaking up the enemy's combination in Western Virginia. 
This adventurous cavalier — who had escaped from the Ohio Penitentiary, 
and returned to active service — 'Was operating in Southwestern Virginia, 
when Gen. Jones, commanding there, was ordered, with all the troops he 
could transport, to Staunton, at the very time that Southwestern Virginia 
was about to be invaded by Burbridge. Having no force to meet Bur- 
bridge in front, it was resolved by Morgan to dash boldly into the heart of 
Kentucky, and thus draw the Federal commander away. This plan suc- 
ceeded, but at the cost of the defeat of Morgan's command. 

With a force of little more than two thousand cavalry, Gen. Morgan 
entered the State of Kentucky through Pound Gap. On the 11th June he 
attacked and captured Cynthiana, with its entire garrison. On the 12th 
he was overtaken by Burbridge, with a largely superiour force, and his 
command eifcetually dispersed, and finally driven from the State. 

This was the last important expedition ever commanded by John Mor- 
gan ; and M-e may add here some account of the tragical circumstances 
which suddenly and unexpectedly brought to a close the career of this 
extraordinary man, and which constitute a case of atrocious tnurder, un- 
paralleled in the records of any events which assume the title of civilized 
war. Driven from Kentucky, Gen. Morgan attempted a smaller scale of 
operations in East Tennessee, and was next heard of near Greenville. He 
was here on the 3d September ; the place lying on the great line of rail- 
road from Virginia to Georgia by the way of Knoxville, and nineteen 
miles distant from Bull's Gap, where Gen. Gillem w^as encamped with a 
brigade of Federal cavalry. What now occurred, it is necessary to state 
with more particularity of detail than w^e have usually bestowed on the 



DEATH OF GEN. MORGAN. 533 

relation of single events, as the manner of Gen. Morgan's dcatli lias been 
variously questioned, the enemy claiming that he was killed in honourable 
combat. 

Tlie General established his headquarters at the house of a Mrs. "Wil- 
liams, in the town of Greenville. His own brigade was sent on the road 
leading to Eodgersville, for the purpose of getting forage, and a detach- 
ment of Tennessee cavalry, six hundred strong, was ordered under Col. Brad 
ford, to encamp on the road leading to Bull's Gap, and to picket the road 
leading towards the enemy. The country between Greenville and the Gap 
is hilly, and wild, and very poor. Gen. Morgan's betrayal was at hand 
from a quarter he had least expected. He had no sooner retired to rest 
than a woman, the daughter-in-law of Mrs. Williams, mounted a horse, 
and, unnoticed, rode to the Federal commander, and informed liim of the 
prize within his reach. Gillem immediately moved his command in the 
direction of Greenville ; when about five miles from town he halted and 
sent a detachment through the woods, and succeeded in getting on the 
flank of Bradford's command, and driving him back from the road, leav- 
ing it open to Greenville. A detachment of four companies of the 13th 
Tennessee Cavalry was then sent forward to charge the town. They mot 
\vith no resistance. The square on which Mrs. W.'s house was situated 
was surrounded immediately. The officers of Morgan's staff being aroused 
by the couriers, of whom there were three or four at the front gate, rushed 
out and were captured one by one. Gen. Morgan attempted to escape 
through the garden ; finding exit in that direction cut off, he concealed 
himself among some grape vines. He had no weapon at all, Captain 
Rogers having one of his pistols, and one of his clerks the other. While 
the officers of his staff' and couriers were together under guard within 
twenty yards of his concealment, he necessarily heard the questions asked 
them and the threats made against them. 

Seeing that there was no hope of successful concealment, he came out 
and surrendered to Capt. Wilcox, of the 13th Tennessee Cavalry, m-Iio had 
already both of Morgan's pistols in his possession. This captain sat on his 
horse and conversed with the General for some time, and then rode off'. 
A few minutes after he left, a man named Andrew Camj^bell, belongiu"* 
to the Federal cavalry referred to, rode up and presented his gun at Gen. 
Morgan The General said : " For God's sake don't shoot me — I am a 
piisoner." The gun was fired and the General fell. The muzzle of the 
gun, a Colt's army rifle, was Avithin two feet of Gen. Morgan's breast when 
it was discharged ; his clothing and his body were blackened M'ith powder. 
His murderer then dismounted and threw the General's body across his 
horse, in front of the saddle, and rode about town shouting, " Here's your 
horse thief." When permission was given to some of Gen. Morgan's 
officers to take possession of the body, they found it lying in the road, 



534 . THE LOST CAUSK. 

about one mile from the place where he had been shot. It was so covcied 
with mud that thej could scarcely recognize it. Tiie ball struck the centra 
of the breast, about three or four inches below its junction with the neck, 
and came out behind the hip bone. The brave commander met his death 
as he met his foes a thousand times before ; there was no shrinking — not a 
quiver of a nerve — though he saw murder in the brawny felon's eye. He 
fell, leaving to his countrymen a testimony of Kentucky chivalry— tho 
record of a gallant, dashing life and a fearless death. 



EARLY S ESrVASION OF MARTLAJTD. 

We left the situation in Virginia with Lee covering Richmond and 
Petersburg, and meditating a menace upon the Federal capital. Ko 
sooner was the defeat of Hunter known, than the rapidity of a new move- 
ment became imperative, and not a moment was lost in pushing Early's 
column towards Maryland. In spite of the prostrating heat, the troops 
made twenty miles a day, and the rumour of this determined advance 
came to the Federal authorities, at the time when Grant was supposed to 
be carrying everything before him. It was another illustration of Gen. 
Lee's wonderful enterprise, and showed this commander tu bo one of the 
most daring as well as the most skilful Generals of the age. That popular 
opinion which regarded Lee as a good slow, prudent commander without 
dash is one of the lowest and most imperfect estimates of his character. 
"We see now that when Grant was hoping to suffocate him with numbers, 
he dared to detach a considerable portion of his army to threaten the capi- 
tal of the enemy. He was left at Petersburg with only the corps of A. P. 
Hill, two divisions of E well's corps, and one division of Longstreet's. But 
Lee had rightly calculated that the diversion towards Washington, coupled 
with the panic it would occasion, would weaken Grant to a greater extent 
than himself, besides impressing him and the Northern public with the 
extent, and activity of his resources, and obtaining an important moral 
effect. 

It became necessary for Grant at once to lind troops to meet the new 
movement. For this purpose the Sixth Corps was taken from the armies 
operating against Richmond and sent up the Chesapeake Bay to man the 
fortifications around Washington, while orders were sent to hurry forward 
the forces of Gen. Hunter from the Ohio. To the Sixth Corps was added 
the Nineteenth, which was under orders to proceed from the Gulf Depart- 
ment to the lines of Yirginia, and which was already debarking in Hamp- 
ton Roads. The garrisons of Baltimore and Washington were at this time 
made up of heavy artillery regiments, hundred-days' men, and detachments 



BATTLE OF MONOCACY BRIDGE. 635 

from ^.he invalid corps ; and the rapidity of reinforcements was the im- 
portant and critical concern. 

On the 3d July, Gen. Early approached Martinsbnrg, accompanied by 
n cavalry force under Ransom. Gen. Sigel, who was in command of the 
Federal forces there, retreated across the Potomac at Shephardstown ; and 
Gen. "Weber, commanding at Harper's Ferry, crossed the river, and occu- 
pied Hagerstown, moving a strong colunm towards Frederick City. Mean- 
while Gen. " Lew." Wallace, a commander much akin in character to 
" Beast " Butler, and who had distinguished himself in Baltimore by a 
cowardly ferocity and an easy prowess in the arrest and persecution 
of citizens, pushed out from that city with Ricketts' division and his own 
command, and took a position at' Monocacy Bridge. 



BATTLE OF MONOCACY BKIDGE. 

Gen. Early had pressed on, crossed the Potomac, and, advancmg to 
Frederick City, found it evacuated by the Federal troops, and that the 
enemy had concentrated his forces at Monocacy Bridge, four miles dis- 
tant. The Federals held the east bank of the river, which runs due north 
and south, and were drawn up along the railroad. Early, having crossed 
the river south of the bridge, sent forward Evans' brigade across an open 
field to develop the strength of the enemy. It moved steadily under a 
heavy fire of musketry until within fifty yards of the enemy's position, 
when another body of Federals emerged from the woods on its right, and 
took it in flank. The other forces of Early were rapidly moved to the 
critical ])oint ; a simultaneous charge was made ; and the enemy broke in 
shameful confusion, leaving the railroad and national pike, and retreating 
in the direction of Gettysburg. His losses were more than a thousand 
killed and wounded, and seven hundred prisoners. 

From Monocacy Gen. Early moved on "Washington, his cavalry ad- 
vance reaching Roekville on the evening of the 10th July. He was now 
within sight of Washington, and the fire of the skirmishers was heard at 
the " White House," and in the department buildings of the capital. The 
enormous march, however, had diminished his army. The five hundred 
miles of incessant advance, at twenty miles a day, left him only eight 
thousand infantry, about forty field pieces and two thousand cavalry with 
which to assault the works around Washington. 

The most im^jortant of these works was Fort Stevens. On the 12th a 
severe skirmish, resulting from a reconnoissance, occurred in front of this 
fort ; but Gen. Early declined to follow it up, and, by a decisive blow, 
attempt the capture of Washington. Ileflecting that he was in the heai-t 
of the enemy's country, and not knowing what force defended the capital, 



636 THE LOST CAUSE. 

he abandoned his design upon it, and in the night of the 12th commenced 
his retreat. 

There has been much question as to the extent of the danger to which 
Washington was at this time exposed, and as to the merit of Early's decli- 
nation of attack. Northern writers declare that if Early had made a vigor- 
ous attack when he first came up, and not lost a day in a fruitless recon- 
noissance, it would have resulted in the capture of the city, so fegbly was 
it then defended. Fortunately we have some distinct evidence on this 
point. Gen. Grant has testified that two divisions of the Sixth Corps, and 
the advance of the Nineteenth Corps had reached Washington before Early 
got there. Whether it would have been prudent for Early to match this 
force, while Hunter was hastening from the AVest to strike his rear, and 
cut him off from his only avenue of retreat across the Potomac, is a ques- 
tion for the military critic to decide. 

Gen. Early, having broke up his camp before Washington, retreated, 
and with little molestation recrossed the Potomac, and finally stood at bay 
on the Opequon to protect tlie Shenandoah Yalley. The results of the ex- 
pedition fell below public expectation at the South, where again had been in- 
dulged the fond imagination of the capture of Washington. But the move- 
ment was, on the whole, a success ; Early brought off fi re thousand horses 
and twenty-five hundred beef cattle ; and the primary object of the march 
liad been accomplished when he retreated and posted himself in the Shenan- 
doah Valley — a standing threat to repeat the enterprise upon Washington 
— for we shall see that it was no longer a mere detached column that op- 
posed him, but an army of forty or fifty thousand men. To that extent 
Gen. Grant had been weakened, and the heavy weight upon Gen. Lee's 
shoulders lightened. 



THE IVnNE FIASCO AT PETERSBUKG. 

While Early was detached from Lee's lines. Gen. Grant made what may 
be described as his last attempt to take Petersburg by a coup de main. 
There were three parts of the enterprise : an assault on the Federal posi- 
tion on Burnside's front ; the explosion of a mine under an angle of the 
Confederate works, to open the way to the attack ; and a feint of opera- 
tions on the north side of the James, to deceive Lee into sending away a 
portion of his troops. 

In June a plan had been suggested by one of Burnside's officers to ex- 
cavate a tunnel under an angle of the Confederate works that was covered 
by a six-gun battery. On the 25th July the work was completed. Its 
length was about five liundred feet, and at the end of the tunnel the mine 
was formed, running parallel with and directly under tlie fort that was to 



THE MINE EXPLOSION OF PETERSBUKG. 537 

be destroyed. On the 27th, the enormous quantity of 12,000 lbs. of pow- 
der was placed in the mine, fuses were constructed and connected with 
the magazine, and everything was in readiness for the grand explosion. 

The mine was exploded between four and five o'clock in the morning 
of the 30th July, An immense mass of dull, red earth was thrown two 
hundred feet in the air ; human forms, gun-carriages, and small arms were 
mingled in what appeared to be a bank of clouds blazing with lightning ; 
a great shock smote the ear, and the ground trembled as if by an appalling 
convulsion of nature. Instantly, before the rumble of the explosion had 
died away, every piece of siege artillery on the enemy's line, and all the 
field artillery that could be brought into position opened as with the grand 
chorus of death. With such an infernal display to strike terrour into the 
Confederates and to demoralize men suddenly awakened from sleep, the 
Ninth Corps, fifteen thousand strong, marched out to attack, and complete 
what was thought to be an easy and certain victory. 

But Lee's soldiers were not men who could be fought after the Chinese 
fashion of assailing the ears with terrible sounds. They were quickly pre- 
pared to meet the enemy. The assaulting column, on reaching the scene 
of explosion, found that there had been opened here a huge crater, one 
hundred and fifty feet -ong, sixty feet wide, and from twenty-five to thirty 
deep. It did not advance beyond it ; instead of rushing forward and 
crowning the crest, the assailants made the most shameful exhibition of 
timidity; they huddled into the ci'ater, they sought shelter there, and no 
commands or persuasions could move them further. A division of negro 
troops was thrown into the crater — this maw of death ; and for two hours 
the mingled mass of white and black troops, utterly demoralized, unable to 
pluck up courage to make a determined charge upon the crest, swayed to 
and fro in the hollow of the exploded earthworks^ while the Confederates 
were rapidly bringing up their artillery on the right and left of the crater 
to destroy the enemy before he could extricate himself from the disgraceful 
coil. Once a feeble charge, in which the black troops were put in advance 
was made towards the crest. It was encountered by Mahone's brigade. 
His men were ordered not to fire until they could see the whites of the 
negroes' eyes. At the first volley delivered at this distance, the blacks 
broke ; they were panic-stricken and past control ; they rushed through 
the troops in the crater back to the original lines, while into this slaughter- 
pen the Confederates now poured an incessant storm of bombs and shells. 
Retreat across the 0})en space in rear of it was to run the gauntlet of death. 
The ground all around was dotted with the fallen ; while the sides and bot- 
tom of the crater were literally lined with dead, the bodies lying in every 
conceivable position. Some had evidently been killed with the butts of 
muskets, as their crushed skulls and badly smashed faces too plainly indi- 
cated ; while the greater portion were shot, great pools of blood having 



538 THE LOST CAUSE. 

flowed from their wounds and stained the ground. In a few short houra 
of morninf^ the enemy had lost between four and tive thousand men, and 
had accomplished nothing. 

" This miserable aft'air," as Gen. Grant himself was forced to entitle it^ 
appears to have been sufficient to satisfy him that he could not hope for 
the capture of Petersburg from expedients, partial eflorts and coujps de 
main^ and that the task was one of magnitude far beyond his original com- 
prehension. His last spasmodic effort went far to persuade the Northern 
public that his whole campaign was a failure, and that they had miscalcu- 
lated the importance of his mere vicinity to the Confederate capital, when 
Gen. Lee had been able to hold Petersburg against an attack combining so 
many elements of success, and that too after he had detached dn important 
column into the valley of Virginia, and sent five of his divisions to the 
north side of the James. The commentary of the New York Times was 
logical and significant. It said : " Under the most favourable circum- 
stances, with the rebel force reduced by two great detachments, we failed 
to carry their lines. Will they not conclude that the twenty-five thousand 
men that held Grant in check are sufficient to garrison the works of Peters- 
burg % "Will they not conclude that, if they were able thus to hold their 
own with the force of from eighteen to twenty thousand men sent to the 
north side of the James River neutralized, this force is available for active 
operations elsewhere ? " 



ClIAPTEH XXXIII. 

SHEEMAN's OAMPAIGX in GEORGIA THE IMPORTANT CORRESPONDENT OF GRANt's IN VIEQINIA* 
THE " ON-TO-RIOHMOND," AND TOE " ON-TO-ATLANTA," THE TWO IMPORTANT MOVE- 
MENTS OF 1864. — Sherman's demand of numbers. — gen. joseph e. jorxston's com- 
mand. HE proposes an OFFENSIVE MOVEMENT. IS BALKED BY BRAGG AT RICHMOND. 

STATEMENT OF JOHXSTON's FORCES ON IST MAT. JOIINSTON's POLICY OF RETREAT. 

HE PROPOSES TO FIGHT AT CASSVILLE ; BUT IS OVERRULED BY HOOD AND HARDEE. HB 

crosses THE ETOWAH — ENGAGEMENT AT NEW HOPE CHURCH. BATTLE OF KENESAW 

MOUNTAIN. — Sherman's ghastly experiment, — he resorts to manoeuvring. — John- 
ston RETIRES TO ATLANTA. THE SITUATION AROUND ATLANTA. DEFEAT OF STURGIS' 

COLUMN IN NORTH MISSISSIPPI. JOHNSTON MASTER OF THE SITUATION. — WONDERFUL 

SUCCESS OF HIS RETREAT. HE HOLDS SHERMAN SUSPENDED FOR DESTRUCTION. NAVAL 

FIGHT IN MOBILE BAY, — A MATCH OF 212 GUNS AGAINST 22. — HOW THE GUN-BOATS 8ELMA 
AND MORGAN FOUGHT THE ENEMY. — GALLANT FIGHT OF THE IRON-CLAD TENNESSEE. — 

SURRENDER OF THE FORTS IN THE HARBOUR. — LITTLE VALUE OF FARKAGUT's CONQUEST. 

EXCESSIVE LAUDATION OF HIM IN THE NORTH. SINKING OF THE CONFEDERATE PRI- 
VATEER ALABAMA. REVIEW OF THE RESULT OF THE PRIVATEERING SERVIC.i; OF THE OON- 

FEDERATES. A GLANCE AT BRITISH " NEUTRALITY." HOW EARL RUSSELL WAS BULLIED 

BY THE WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT. THE STORY OF THE LAIRDs' RAMS, OHUISE OF THE 

ALABAMA. WHY SHE FOUGHT THE KEARSARGE OFF THE FRENCH COAST. CAPT. SEMMES' 

MOTIVES FOR A NAVAL DUEL. THE ALABAMA SINKING. — THE FEDERAL VlfSEL SENDS 

NO RELIEF. — MR. SEWARd's LITTLE REMARK ABOUT " PIRATES." — DISCOVERT OF CON- 
CEALED ARMOUR ON THE KEARSARGE. — HOW THE RICHMOND EDITORS ■WOUID HAVE 

TREATED CAPT. WINSLOW. A CURIOUS ANECDOTE OF ADMIRAL FARRAGUT. CAITl'RE OF 

THE PRIVATEER FLORIDA. THE EXPLOIT OF NAPOLEON COLLINS IN A NEUTRAL PORT. 

HE ATTEMPTS TO SINK AND THEN STEALS THE CONFEDERATE VESSEL. THE NEW YORK 

HERALD AND " THE PAGES OF HISTORY." — INVASION OF MISSOURI BY GEN. PRICE. — HOW 
AND WHY IT FAILED. THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI SUNK OTTT OF SIGHT IN THE VAR. 

The important correspondent of Grant's campaign in Yirn;inia was 
that of Sherman in Geoi'gia ; the great military effort of ISOi being re- 
solved into two imj^ortant movements : the " On-to-Kichmond," and the 
" On-to-Atlanta." These grand movements were on different sides of the 
Alleghany mountains ; a thousand miles of distance intervened between 
them ; but both concurred in the design of attempting deep operations in 
the South, and reaching what were deemed vital points of the Confederacy. 



640 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Gen. Sherman demanded what Federal commanders invariably named 
as the condition of their success against the brave Confederate armies— 
vastly superiour numbers. Questions of generalship, skill and courage 
were concerns for the Confederates. Slierman did not discuss these ; he 
wanted physical momentum ; he demanded a hundred thousand men and 
two hundred and fifty pieces of artillery. The lavish government at 
Washington supplied the demand, minus twelve hundred men. Three 
armies were united under Sherman, viz. : the army of the Cumberland, 
Maj.-Gen. Thomas commanding; the army of tlic Tennessee, Maj. -Gen. 
McPherson commanding ; and the army of the Ohio, Maj.-Gen. Scliofield 
commanding. The effective strength of these three armies was 98,797 
men, and two hundred and fifty-four guns. 

Fortunately for the Confederacy the military genius of Gen. Joseph E. 
Johnston had been called again, although unwillingly, into service by 
President Davis, who had displaced Bragg from the Army of Tennessee 
only after he had accomplished a complete sum of disaster, and capped his 
career of misfortune on Missionary Ridge. On the 27tli December, 1863, 
Gen. Johnston had assumed command of the army at Dalton, Georgia. 
In January he had fallen back from Dalton, and his advanced posts ; on 
the 7th February he was encamped at Rome, Georgia ; but he again ad- 
vanced to Dalton shortly afterwards, and proposed then an offensive move- 
ment against the enemy, whose strength he knew would be greatly increased 
in the spring, and who, therefore, could be attacked with better advantage 
before such increase of the disproportion of numbers. Gen. Johnston 
knew very well that he could not expect reinforcements at pace with the 
enemy, and was, therefore, wisely determined to make at once a forward 
movement and try issues with him as soon as possible. But a most un- 
timely controversy in Richmond defeated Johnston's just and promising 
plan of operations. Gen. Bragg had been removed from command of the 
army he had so disastrously led, to take the post, by the persistent par- 
tiality of President Davis, of " consulting or advising officer " to the Exec- 
utive. The favourite in Richmond had his own plan of offensive opera- 
tions differing from that of Johnston; President Davis agreed with him. 
Gen. Johnston, in vain, telegraphed to Richmond : " I expressly accept 
taking the offensive — I only difier with you as to details " ; but the dis- 
cussion of '• details " lingered in Richmond, until, when in the month of 
April the President sent a messenger to Georgia to explain his plans, the 
opportunity of the ofi'ensive was past, the enemy was being reinforced to 
more than twice Johnston's number, and was only waiting for the signal 
from over the Alleghanies to commence the " On-to- Atlanta " movement. 

On the 1st May, the eftective artillery and infantry of the Array of 
Tennessee amounted to 40,900 ; the effective cavalry to about four thou- 
sand. Gen. Johnston was thus greatly overmatched in numbers ; and he 



Sherman's on-to-atlanta. 541 

had no prospect of compensation, but in snperioiir skill and strategy But 
the condition of his army was excellent in every respect, and had been 
made so by the admirable skill and inspiration he had brought to the 
work of its regeneration. It was well-fed, well-clad, in high and hopeful 
spirits ; and for the first time in its history there was no barefoot soldier 
in its ranks. Ninety days before, the army left by Bragg was dishearten- 
ed, despairing, and on the verge of dissolution. By judicious measures 
Gen. Johnston had restored confidence, re-established discipline, and 
exalted the hearts of his army. There was reason now to hope that the 
Army of Tennessee, tlie most ill-starred and successless of all our armies, 
had seen its worst days. 

In the first days of May, simultaneous with the onward movement of 
Grant in Virginia, Sherman began his grand march into Georgia. The 
Federal advance was in three columns — Thomas moving in front, direct 
upon Johnston's centre at Dalton, with his advance at 3\inggold and Tun- 
nel Hill ; Schofield from Cleveland thirty miles northeast of Chattanooga, 
via Red Clay, on the Georgia line, to unite with Thomas ; and JMcPher- 
6on, by a flank movement of some forty or fifty miles upon Johnston's 
lines of communications at Resaca, a station on the Western and Atlantic 
railroad, at the crossing of the Oostanaula river, eighty-four miles from 
Atlanta, and fifteen miles south of Dalton. 

The flank movement on Resaca forced Johnston to evacuate Dalton. 
On the Ittth May, having moved to Resaca, he sustained, with perfect suc- 
cess, two attacks of the enemy on his breastworks, and drove him witli a 
loss of two thousand men. But Johnston did not design to fight here ; 
he determined to fall back slowly until circumstances should put the 
chances of battle in his favour, and he hoped by taking advantage of posi- 
tions and opportunities to reduce the odds against him by partial engage- 
ments. In pursuance of this characteristic policy, he took up at leisure 
his line of retrograde movement in the direction of the Etowah River, pass- 
ing through Kingston and Cassville. 

In rear of Cassville Gen. Johnston had proposed to deliver a decisive 
battle, taking position on a bold ridge with an open valley before it. 
Two of his corps commanders, however — Polk and Hood — questioned the 
value of the position against the enemy's artillery, flatly declared their 
distrust, and were for abandoning the ground immediately. " So unwill- 
ing were they," writes Gen. Johnston, " to depend on the ability of their 
corps to defend the ground, that I yielded, and the army crossed the Eto- 
wah on the 20th of May — a step which I have regretted ever since.^'' He 
had reason to regret it. While he retreated towards Allatoona Pass, a 
division of Thomas' army was sent to Rome, ca])turing it with its forts and 
artillery, and its valuable mills and foundries. Meanwhile Sherman pressed 
Bteadily on for Dallas with a view of turning the difficult pass at Allatoona, 



642 THE LOST CAUSE. 

On the 25th the Federal advance under Hooker struck Stewart's divi- 
sion at the 'New Hope Church, and a hot engagement of two hours ensued. 
The next two days there was constant skirmishing and fighting. Late in 
afternoon of the 27th, Cleburne's division assaulted McPherson at Dallas 
and left six hundred of the enemy's dead on the field. But these sharp 
encounters were of little significance ; for it was evidently not Sherman's 
intention to make a great battle, and risk dashing his army to pieces in 
trying to force the pass at Allatoona. He was merely developing his lines 
for a movement on Johnston's flank ; and when, on the 30th of May, his 
left had readied the railroad near Marietta, Johnston had no other choice 
than to abandon his position at New Hope Church, and retreat to the 
strong positions of Kenesaw, Pine and Lost Mountains. 

BATTLE OF KENESAW MOUNTAIN". 

These natural battlements covered the railroad back to the Chatta- 
hoochie river. On the 19th June the disposition of Johnston's forces was : 
Hood's corps with its right on the Marietta and Canton road, Loring's 
on the Kenesaw Mountain, and Hardee's, with its left extending across the 
Lost Mountain, and the Marietta road. Subsequently Cheatham's and 
Cleburne's divisions of Hardee's corps were moved up to Kenesaw Moun- 
tain, which was properly the apex of Johnston's lines. 

On the 27th June Sherman attempted an assault by McPherson and 
Thomas on Johnston's left centre on Kenesaw Mountain. The battle was 
but the slaughter of thousands of his men. They never came in contact 
witli the Confederate works ; they were swept by a fiery torrent of shot 
and shell ; and when the attack was withdrawn more than three thousand 
of the enemy were scattered over the rugged ground, dead or bleeding. 
On the Confederate side, Cheatham's division lost one hundred and ninety- 
five men, while two thousand of the enemy were killed and wounded in 
his front. In Cleburne's division the loss was eleven ; that in Loring's 
whole corps two hundred and thirty-six ; while on this part of the line the 
loss of the enemy was more than a thousand. Of this ghastly experiment 
Gen. Sherman was satisfied to write : " Failure as it was, and for which I 
assume the entire responsibility, I yet claim it produced great fruits, as it 
demonstrated to Gen. Johnston that I would assault, and that boldly." 

After his repulse at Kenesaw Moimtain, Sherman again resorted to 
manoeuvring. On the night of the 2d July, he commenced moving his 
army by the left flank, and on the morning of the 3d found that Johnston, 
in consequence of this movement, had abandoned Kenesaw, and retreated 
across the Chattahoochie. He remained on the Chattahoochie to give hia 
men rest and get up stores, until tlie 17th July, when he resumed opera* 
tions, crossed the river, and established his lines within eight miles of At- 
lanta. Peach-Tree Creek and the river below its mouth was now taken 



SUCCESS OF GEN. JOHKSTON's RETREAT. 543 

by Jolmston for his line of defence ; the immediate fortifications of Atlanta 
were strengthened ; and the two armies now confronted each other in 
what was nnniistakably the crisis of the Georgia campaign. 

To this point tlie incidents of the compaign had all been in faroiir of 
the Confederates. The engagements at Resaca, New Hope Church, and 
Kenesaw Mountain, had been all Confederate victories. In connection, 
too, with the campaign, Gen. Forrest had achieved a brilliant success in 
Northern Mississippi, and intercepting at Guntown, on the lOtli June, an 
expedition under Sturgis on its way from Memphis to protect and operate 
in Sherman's rear, had driven it back in utter rout and confusion, and 
hotly pursued it a distance of a hundred miles, taking two thousand 
prisoners, and killing and wounding an equal number. This stroke uncov- 
ered Sherman's rear, and left him a hundred and thirty-five miles in the 
interiour of Georgia, in constant dread that cavalry might get upon his 
line, and destroy it beyond the possibility of further use. The situation 
was all that Gen. Johnston had anticipated ; all that he wished for. He 
had performed all tlie conditions of the campaign he had proposed to him- 
self; he had now " got the chances of battle in his favour ;" he had " re- 
duced the odds against him by partial engagements ;" he had brouglit his 
army to Atlanta, after inflicting a loss upon the enemy five times as great 
as his own ; and he had performed tlie almost marvellous feat of conduct- 
ing a retreat through a diflicult and mountainous country more than a 
hundred miles in extent, without the loss of materiel or of a single gun. 
Gen. Johnston held Atlanta more firmly than Lee held Richmond. Sher- 
man was unable to invest the city, and to withdraw he would have to pass 
over a single road, one hundred and thirty-five miles long, traversing a 
wild and broken country. Johnston held him as it were suspended for 
destruction. The situation was brilliant for the Confederates. A pause 
had now been given to the parallel operations of the enemy in Virginia 
and Georgia — the one aimed at Richmond, the other at Atlanta ; — both 
movements were now unmistakably in check ; and intelligent men among 
the ranks of the enemy did not hesitate to declare that it was only necessary 
for the Confederates to maintain the situation at each point to put Northern 
patience to the last proof, and compel a peace. 

In this interesting condition we must leave the great campaign of 1864 
on the dominant lines in Yirginia and Georgia, to make a rapid narrative 
of other events of the war, including certain successes of the enemy on the 
water, and some detached operations important enough to draw attention 
after them. 

The naval events of 18G4 may be briefly summed up as a battle in Mo- 
bile Bay ; the destruction of the Confederate privateer Alabama, and the 
capture of her most efficient ally, the Florida. We shall discuss these iu 
the order of their importance. 



544 THE LOST CAUSE. 



NAVAL FIGHT IN AIOBILE BAT. 



Tlie enemy had long contemplated the possession of Mobile Bay 
guarded at its entrance by two imposing fortifications. Here was a diffi 
cult point to blockade; here was a nursery of the Confederate navy ; and 
here vessels were already being constructed for raising the blockade. 

In the latter part of July, Gen. Canby sent Maj.-Gen. Gordon Granger, 
with such forces as he could collect, to co-operate with Admiral Farragut 
against the defences of Mobile Bay. On the 5th August the Federal fleet, 
numbering fourteen steamers and four monitors, carrying in all more than 
two hundred guns, and manned by twenty-eight hundred men, moved 
steadily up the main ship-channel into Mobile Bay. Having once passed 
Fort Morgan, this huge armada had to encounter a Confederate naval 
force composed of one iron-clad — the ram Tennessee — and three wooden 
vessels. 

The Brooklyn took the lead of the enemy's fleet in passing Fort Morgan, 
keeping up such a broadside fire on its batteries that the guns of the fort 
were almost silenced. But another danger had to be run ; and as the fleet 
moved grandly on, a torpedo exploded beneath the iron-clad Tecumseh, 
and in a moment she had disappeared beneath the waves, carrying down 
with her her commander and nearly all her crew. As the fleet got past 
the fort, the ram Tennessee dashed out at the Hartford, Farragut's flag- 
ship, but finding her starboard side completely protected by the Monitors, 
was unable to reach her, and was content with an exchange of harmless 
fire. 

The three Confederate gunboats, the Morgan, Gaines and Selma were 
ahead, the latter pouring a raking fire into the enemy's fleet. The ene- 
my passed up to a pocket of deep water, where he bore ofi" somewhat to 
the westward, and appeared to be collecting his fleet. About this time 
the Gaines was disabled, and forced to retire in a sinking condition. The 
Morgan and Selma continued to fire into the Hartford and Brooklyn, the 
leading vessels of the enemy. The Metacomet, which had up to this time 
been lashed to the port-side of the Hartford, was now cast off, and steamed 
forward in the direction of the Selma and Morgan, the fire from the ene- 
my's fieet having ceased. 

The Metacomet was a wooden gunboat, mounting ten heavy guns ; 
and the Morgan and Selma were also wooden gunboats, the former carry- 
ing six and the latter four heavy guns. At this time the Confederate flag- 
ship Tennessee, with Admiral Buchanan on board, was in the neighbourhood 
of Fort Gaines, beyond signal distance of the Morgan and Selma. Shortly 
after the time when the Metacomet cast ofi', two other vessels of the ene* 



NAVAL FIGHT IN MOBILE BAT. 5'lc 

my were also seen to be cast off and lieadino; in tlie same general direction 
with the Metacomet, though distant from her about two and a half miles. 
Immediately on seeing the Metacomet cast off, the Selma, previously head- 
ing southwestwardly, changed her course and bore off up the Bay north- 
wardly and eastwardly with ^,^5 much steam as she could make, and con- 
tinued on that general direction, using her after guns. Upon the Selma'? 
turning off, the Metacomet bore down on the Morgan, which vessel engaged 
her as she came on for some minutes, when she also changed her course 
and steamed southeastwardly in the direction of shoal water, or Fort Mor- 
gan. The Metacomet now pursued the Morgan for some minutes, the latter 
still fighting her as she came, when a rain squall suddenly arose which 
temporarily obscured the vessels. 

The obscurity of the squall lasted some fifteen minutes, and when it 
cleared off, the Metacomet was found to have abandoned the pursuit of 
the Morgan, and had gone in quest of the Selma, which Avas still pursuing 
her course up the Bay. The Metacomet was now distant from the Mor- 
gan some two miles, and was closely overhauling the Selma. The Morgan 
headed as if to go in the direction of the Metacomet and Selma, when the 
latter surrendered. 

It appears from this statement that there was no combination of action 
or concert made or attempted between the Morgan and Selma at any time 
after the Metacomet cast loose from the Hartford. It is proper to explain 
that this statement is reduced from the findings of a naval court of inquiry 
called in the Confederacy to investigate the conduct of the naval battle in 
Mobile Bay ; and that, while its authenticity is thus put beyond question, 
it is directly opposed to, and in utter variance with the ofiicial report of 
Admiral Buchanan, to the effect that the Morgan and Selma were engaged 
in fight, and at one and the same time, with the Metacomet, and that in 
the midst of that fight the Morgan withdrew and left the Selma to her 
fate. Indeed it was fortunate that the two vessels never at any time com- 
bined ; for had such combination taken place it would have led to the 
concentration of the Federal gunboats and resulted in the loss of the Mor- 
gan as well as the Selma. There is no doubt that Commander Harrison 
of the first managed his vessel skilfully ; and he ultimately saved her by a 
gallant run to Mobile. To estimate this feat it must be remembered that 
it took place after the severe action of the day ; that it was undertaken in 
opposition to the unanimous opinion of a council of oflicers ; that the ene- 
my was between the Morgan and Mobile, his gunboats and iron-clads 
cruising about the Bay ; that the night was calm and starlight, and the 
Confederate vessel high-pressure, and making black smoke which could 
be seen a long distance. Notwithstanding these adverse circumstances the 
Morgan succeeded in reaching the obstructions near the city, although pursued 
«md shelled for the greater part of the way by three of the Federal vessels. 



546 THE LOST CAUSE. 

"While the affair of the Metacomet and wooden gunboats was taking 
place the Confederate flag-ship Tennessee was three or four miles distant, 
slowly following up the rear of the enemy's column of ships, which, being 
of too great draught, were confined to a " pocket " of deep water of about 
five or six miles length and running in about a north-northwest direction. 
It was only the enemy's gunboats, being of light draught, that could go 
beyond these limits and pursue ours. 

As the enemy's fleet, having passed the forts and dispersed the gun- 
boats, was proceeding to cast anchor, the Tennessee at last gave sign of 
battle and made directly for the Hartford. It was a desperate enterprise, 
for although the vessel was protected by five and six inches of iron-plating, 
she was about to engage in a conflict in which she would be beset by a 
whole fleet. Farragut's orders to the Monitors were to attack the Tennes- 
see, not only with their guns, but bows on at full speed. The doomed 
vessel was soon surrounded. The Monongahela, the Lackawanna and the 
Hartford, each struck her in turn ; and the latter in rasping along her 
side poured a whole port broadside of nine-inch solid shot within ten feet 
of her casemate. The vessel still floated, but was unmanageable, as her 
steering chains Avere gone. A second and more terrible onset was pre- 
pared ; the three vessels already mentioned again bore down upon her ; a 
fourth, the Ossipee, was approaching her at full speed ; and the Chickasaw 
was pounding away at her stern. As she was about being struck by the 
vessels converging upon her, a white flag was hoisted, and Admiral 
Euchanan surrendered his vessel only after she had been disabled, himself 
wounded, and his crew almost in a smothering condition. He might 
have anticipated the result of the unequal contest, and have declined it 
with honom*. 

The Federal success, however, was yet incomplete, as the forts still 
held out, although with little prospect of resisting a bombardment from 
the shore batteries of the enemy, and the Monitors and ships inside the 
Bay. On the 8th August Fort Gaines surrendered to the combined naval 
and land forces. Fort Powell was blown np and abandoned. 

On the 9th Fort Morgan was invested, and after a severe bombardment 
feurrendered on the 23d. The total captures amounted to 1,464 prisoners, 
and 104 pieces of artillery. 

The enemy was thus in possession of Mobile Bay, and enabled to close 
tlie port to all ingress or egress of blockade runners. But this was the 
limit of his success ; the city was still held by the Con federates, 'and months 
were to elapse before the enemy was to make any new demonstration upon 
it. The capture of the forts did not give the city of Mobile to the enemy, 
or even give him a practicable water basis for operations against it. 

Yet Farragut's victory, so easily acliieved and so little fruitful, -was ex- 
claimed over the North as one of the ij-reatest naval achievements of the 



PKIVATEEKING SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERATES. 547 

war, and was bj Yankee hyperbole exalted above the deeds of Nelson at 
Trafalgar and the Nile. He who had by the most indifferent prowess — 
for the enemy's superiority on the water had always been a foregone con- 
clusion — come to be the naval hero of the war, was immortalized after the 
modem New York fashion of big dinners and newspaper lyrics. A 
" poet " was employed to recite to him in public what the New York 
journals called " a masterly ballad," each stanza of which closed with 
the word " Farragut." A feast was prepared for him, where a plaster of 
ice-cream represented the American Eagle, and miniature ships, built of 
sticks of candy, loaded the table. The sober mind will turn from these 
coarse displays of New York enthusiasm, ridiculous to childishness, 
to look at facts. Tlie naval fight in Mobile Bay was a match between 
eighteen Federal vessels, having two hundred and twelve guns, and four 
Confederate vessels, having twenty-two guns. The commentary of history 
will be taken from the words written at the time in the columns of the 
Riclnnond Examiner : " It was a most unequal contest in which our gal- 
lant little navy was engaged, and we lost the battle ; but our ensign went' 
down in a blaze of glory." 

We pass to other events of the naval service of 1864, to find a record 
of Federal success, coupled with peculiar circumstances of dishonour. 

SINKING OF THE CONFEDERATE PRIVATEER ALABAMA. 

The privateering service of the Confederate States had not accomplished 
all that the public had expected from it ; and yet the sum of its results 
was formidable, and amounted to a considerable weight in the war. From 
the time the pilot-boat Savannah and the little schooner Jeff. Davis sallied 
out in the first year of the war, terrour had been struck into the entire 
commercial marine of the enemy. The Sumter, carrying nine guns, under 
command of Capt. Raphael Semmes, was the first really formidable ex- 
periment of a Confederate j^rivateer. After capturing a number of prizes, 
she was abandoned at Gibraltar, in January, 18G2, as unsea\\'orthy. Since 
then the two most famous Confederate privateej's were the Alabama and 
the Florida, which scoured the seas from the East Indies to the Atlantic 
coast, inflicting on the Federal commerce and tonnage the most disastrous 
results. 

A report was made to the Federal Congress of captures by Confederate 
cruisers up to the 80th of January, 1864. The list, which was not com- 
plete, footed up 193, with a tonnage of 89,704. At fifty dollars a ton, tho 
vessels were valued at $4,485,200 ; the cargoes, at one hundred dollars a 
ton, were estimated at $8,970,400 ; total value, $13,455,500. Sixty-twc 
were captured by the Alabama; twenty -six by the Sumter, and twenty 
two by the Florida. 



548 THE LOST CAUSE. 

But the effect of the Confederate privateering on Federal tonnage waa 
even more marked. The perils of capture were standing temptations to 
Northern ship-owners to transfer their vessels, and put them under the 
protection of foreign flags ; and in the summer of 1864 it was officially 
reported at Washington that 478,665 tons of American shippage were 
flying other flags. This loss to the North, as a matter of course, involved 
a consequent increase of the tonnage and power of its commercial rivals, 
and was a bitter and humiliating infliction upon its pride. 

The Alabama, the most formidable of the Confederate privateers or 
cruisers, had been built at Birkenhead, England, and left the Mersey, 
July 29, 1862. The construction of this vessel within the British domin- 
ions was long a theme of diplomatic accusations at "Washington, in which 
it was charged that Great Britain had, in this cii'cumstance, overstepped 
the limits and obligations of her neutrality in tlie war. To this foolish 
and insolent assertion the latter Government made a reply which should 
have been conclusive of the matter. On the 11th September, 1863, Earl 
Russell had written : " With regard to the general duties of a neutral, 
according to international law, the true doctrine has been laid down re- 
peatedly by Presidents and judges of eminence of the United States and 
that doctrine is, that a neutral may sell to either or both of two belligerent 
parties any implements or munitions of war which such belligerents may 
wish to purchase from the subjects of the neutral, and it is difficult to find 
a reason why a ship that is to be used for warlike purposes is more an in- 
strument or implement of war than cannon, muskets, swords, bayonets, 
gunpowder, and projectiles to be fired from cannon and muskets. A ship 
or musket may be sold to one belligerent or the other, and only ceases to 
be neutral Avhen the ship is owned, manned, and employed in war, and the 
musket is held by a soldier, and used for the purpose of killing his enemy. 
In fact, the ship can never be expected to decide a war or a campaign, 
whereas the other things above mentioned may, by equipping a larger 
army, enable the belligerent which requires them to obtain decisive advan- 
tages in the war." 

Here was a plain, comprehensive definition of neutrality, which the 
good sense of the world evidently accepted. It is a sad reflection upon 
tie British Government that it should have been driven from a position so 
well fortified by reason and justice, and should have subsequently allowed 
itself to be bullied by the Washington Government into the seizure of two 
iron-clads (combining the ram and monitor princij)les), which were being 
built by the Messrs, Laird, at Birkenhead, as alleged^ for the service of the 
Confederates. That seizure was made in 1863. The terms in which that 
outrage was demanded, and the mean and cowardly circuit by which the 
British Government ultimately conceded it, may be placed here as an ex- 
ample of tiie timidity of that Government, and a striking evidence that 



THE lairds' EAM8. 549 

nothing had been further from its intentions during the war than the " rec- 
ognition " of the Confederate States. The demand was made as follows ' 

" Legation of the United States, London, Sept. 3, 1863. 

" My Loed : I have the honour to transmit copies of further depositions relating to 
the launching and other preparation of the second of the two vessels-of-war from the 
yard of Messrs. Laird, at Birkenliead, concerning which it has already been my disagree- 
able duty to make most serious representations to Her Majesty's Government. 

" I believe there is not any reasonable ground for doubt that these vessels, if permit- 
ted to leave the port of Liverpool, will be at once devoted to the object of carrying on 
war against the United States of America. I have taken the necessary measures in the 
proper quarters to ascertain the truth of the respective statements current here, that they 
are intended for the use of the Government of France or for the Pacha of Egypt, and 
have found both without foundation. At this moment, neither of those Powers appears 
to have occasion to use concealment or equivocation in regard to its intentions, had it 
any in obtaining such ships. In the notes which I had the honour to address to your 
Lordship on the 11th of July and the 14th of August, I believe I stated the importance 
attached by my Government to the decision involved in this case with sufficient distinct- 
ness. Since that date I have had the opportunity to receive from the United States a 
full approbation of its contents. At the same time, I feel it my painful duty to make 
known to your Lordship that, in some respects, it has fallen short in expressing the 
earnestness with which I have been in the interval directed to describe the grave nature 
of the situation in which both countries must be placed in the event of an act of aggres- 
sion committed against the Government and people of the United States by either of these 
formidable vessels. 

"I pray your Lordship to accept the assurances of the highest consideration with 
which I have the honour to be, my Lord, your most obedient servant, 

" Chaeles Francis Adams. 
^^ Bight Honouralle Earl Hussell, <&c., c6c." 

The consequence of this menace was that the Messrs. Laird were for- 
bidden to allow these vessels to leave their yard " without an ample ex- 
planation of their destination and a sustainable reference to the owner or 
owners for whom thej are constructed." It was outrageously held by 
Lord Russell that " Messrs. Laird were bound to declare — and sustain on 
unimpeachable testimony such declaration — the Governments for whom 
the steam rams have been built." In other words, without an affidavit or 
other legal foundation for proceedings against tbeni, these gentlemen were 
required to come forward and prove their innocence, a thing opposed to 
all the law of Coke and Blackstone, and practised for the first time in 
Biitish dominions at the dictation of powers in Washington. 

"\Ve return to a brief chronicle of the cruise of the Alabama. She 
nrrived at Porto Pray a on the 19 th August. Shortly thereafter Capt. 
Raphael Semmes assumed command. Hoisting the Confederate flag, she 
cruised and captured several vessels in the vicinity of Flores. Cruising to 
the westward, and making several captures, she approached within two 
hundred miles of New York ; thence going southward, arrived, on the 



550 THE LOST CATJSE. 

18th ISTovember at Port Royal, Mai-tinique. On the night of the 19th she 
escaped from the harbour and the Federal steamer San Jacinto, and on 
the 20th November was at Blanquilla. On the 7th December she cap- 
tured the steamer Ariel in the passage between Cuba and St. Domingo. 
On January 11th, 1863, she sunk the Federal gunboat Hatteras off Gal- 
veston, and on the 30th arrived at Jamaica. Cruising to the eastward, 
and making many captures, she arrived, on the 10th April, at Fernando 
de Noronha, and on the 11th May at Bahia, where, on the 13th, she was 
joined by the Confederate steamer Georgia. Cruising near the line, 
thence southward towards the Cape of Good Hope, numerous captures 
were made. On the 29tli July she anchored in Saldanha Bay, South 
Africa, and near there, on the 5th August, was joined by the Confederate 
bark Tuscaloosa, Commander Low. In September, 1863, she was at St. 
Simon's Bay, and in October was in the Straits of Sunda, and up to Jan- 
uary 20, 1864, cruised in the Bay of Bengal and vicinity, visiting Singa- 
pore, and making a number of very valuable captures, including the High- 
lander, Sonora, etc. From this point she cruised on her homeward track 
via Cape of Good Hope, capturing the bark Tycoon and ship Eockingham, 
and arrived at Cherbourg, France, in June, 1861, where she repaired. 

A Federal steamer, the Kearsarge, was lying off the harbour. Capt. 
Semmes might easily have evaded this enemy ; the business of his vessel 
was that of a privateer ; and her value to the Confederacy was out of all 
comparison with a single vessel of the enemy, the loss of which would, of 
course, be but an unimportant subtraction from the immense superiority 
of the Federals on the Avater. But Capt. Semmes had been twitted with 
the name of " pirate ; " and he was easily persuaded to attempt an eclat 
for the Southern Confederacy by a naval fight witliin sight of the French 
coast, which contest, it was calculated, would prove the Alabama a legiti- 
mate war vessel, and give such an exhibition of Confederate belligerency 
as possibly to revive the question of " recognition " in Paris and London. 
These were the secret motives of the gratuitous fight with which Capt. 
Semmes obliged the enemy off the port of Cherbourg. 

The Alabama carried one 7-inch Blakely rifled gun, one 8-inch smooth- 
bore pivot gun, and six 32-pounders, smooth-bore, in broadside ; the Kear- 
sarge carried four broadside 32-pounders, two 11-inch and one 28-pound 
rifle. The two vessels were thus about equal in match and armament ; 
and their tonnage was about the same. On the morning of the 19th of 
June, the Alabama steamed out of the harbour of Cherbourg, for the pur- 
pose of engaging the Kearsarge, which had been lying off-and-on the port 
for several days previously. She came up with the latter at a distance of 
about seven miles from the shore. The vessels were about one mile from 
each other, when the Alabama opened with solid shot upon the enemy, to 
which he replied in a few minutes. 



SINKING OF " THE ALABAMA." 651 

The two vessels, instead of coming to close quai-ters, resorted to a curi- 
ous manffiuvre — fighting in a circle, and steaming around a common 
centre. The distance between them varied from a quarter to half a mile. 
The Alabama fired alternately with shot and sliell ; her guns were ad- 
mirably worked ; but strange to say, the Kearsarge showed no sign of 
material damage, when, after more than an hom*'s fire, Capt. Semmes 
ascertained that his own vessel was in a sinking condition, large apertures 
having been made in her sides and between decks. He now turned his 
vessel towards the French coast, hoping to reach it under a full head of 
steam and a crowd of sail. It was too late ; the ship was evidently 
doomed ; the fires were extinguished in the furnaces ; and when the Kear- 
sarge, which pursued her, was four hundred yards distant, Capt. Semmes 
hauled down his colours, and prepared to surrender. His vessel was evi- 
dently settling under him, and he looked with anxiety to the Kearsarge 
for her boats to put out to receive the surrender and rescue her prisoners 
from the fate of drowning. No boat came. Instead of despatching relief, 
the Kearsarge fired five times upon the Alabama after her colours had been 
struck. " It is charitable to suppose," says Capt. Semmes, " that a ship 
of war of a Christian nation could not have done this intentionally." But 
there is another explanation of this act. It has since become known to 
the world that in a certain diplomatic letter from Secretary Seward on 
questions growing out of this battle, he has taken the position that the 
Federal vessel had choice of a capture of prisoners, or " of sinking the 
crew of the pirate ! " 

It appeared that nothing but a watery grave awaited the officers and 
crew of the Alabama. As the vessel was on the point of sinking, the un- 
happy and desperate men leaped overboard, and the waves were soon filled 
with drowning men. Happily an English yacht, the Deerhound, was 
upon the scene, and having been allowed by the Kearsarge to go to the 
rescue, steamed up in the midst of the drowning men, and rescued most 
of them from the water. Capt. Semmes was taken by the Deerhound's 
boat from the water, as he was sinking for the last time. He turned his 
face to the rescuing party, and said : " I am Capt. Semmes — save rae." 
He was eagerly taken aboard when his rank was thus known, and, being 
covered with a tarpaulin, he was carried to the English yacht, directly 
under the guns of the Kearsarge, without attracting any attention from the 
vessel. 

The loss of the Alabama, in killed and wounded, was thirty ; and on 
the Kearsarge not a single life had been lost. But there was another in- 
equality of results of n)uch more curious interest. The hull of the Ala- 
bama had been fearfully opened by the enemy's shot and shell, and yet the 
Kearsarge, after the contest, showed such little evidence of serious damage, 
that it did not appear even ne<;essary for her to come into port to repair. 



652 THE LOST CAUSE. 

The secret came out after the engagement. Tlie Kearsarge had a concealed 
armour, that completely protected her from the thirteen or fourteen shots 
received in or about her hull. Her midship section, on both sides, waa 
thoroughlj iron-coated. This had been done with chain constructed for the 
purpose, placed perpendicularly from the rail to the water's edge, the 
whole covered over by a thin outer planking, which gave no indication of 
the armour beneath. This planking had been ripped oft* in every direc- 
tion by the shot and shell of the Alabama, the chain broken and indented 
in many places, and forced partly into the ship's side. She was most 
effectually guarded, however, in this section from penetration ; and in the 
hour's contest the Alabama little knew that she was fighting a mailed 
enemy, with scarcely a single chance in her favour. 

In commenting on this discovery, the E-ichmond Dispatch referred to 
a certain custom of chivalry, that when a knight was discovered in con- 
cealed armour his spurs were hacked off by the public hangman. The 
Northern public, however, could scarcely be expected to take so fine a 
notion ; and Capt. Winslow, the North Carolinian, who commanded the 
Kearsarge, easily entitled his exploit among the sensations of the day, 
reached the American coast to find himself famous, was overwhelmed with 
receptions and dinners in Boston, and had his physiognomy recorded on 
the first pages of the New York pictorials. 



CAPTURE OF THE PEIVATEEK FLORIDA. 

A few weeks later another naval exploit of the enemy was practically 
to terminate the privateering service of the Confederates, and to give one 
of the most extraordinary illustrations of the enemy's utter disregard of 
means in obtaining any desirable result in the war. An account of this 
event is properly preceded by an anecdote told in the New York news- 
papers, of Admiral Farragut, the naval hero of the North. "When the 
Russian Admiral, in 1863, wintered in New York with his fleet, it was an 
occasion of receptions and banquets, at one of which occurred the follow- 
ing conversation with Admiral Farragut. The latter was complaining 
of the American officer who did not capture a Confederate steamer in a 
neutral port. " Why, would you have done it ? " asked the Russian. 
" Yes, sir," was the prompt reply. " But," ^aid the Russian, " your Gov- 
ernment would have broken you." " Of course it would," replied Ad- 
miral F. ; " hut wouldnH I have had her ! " The New York journals re- 
ported this among the heroic anecdotes of their heroic men ; when it was 
simply the brutal expression of advantage, the disowning of all interna- 
tional conscience, the characteristic Yankee bluster of might against right. 

This curious exposition of international law by the Federal Admiral 



OAPTUKE OF " THE FLOKIDA." 553 

did not have to wait long for a practical illustration. After the capture of 
the Alabama, the enemy appears to have had an increased desire for tho 
other important Confederate cruiser, the Florida, carrying eight guns. She 
had eluded the Kearsarge at Brest, and since then had ventured within 
sixty miles of New York, chasing the war steamer Ericsson, and capturing 
the steamer Electric Spark on the route to New Orleans. She was next 
heard from at Tenerifie, and subsequently entered the Bay of San Salvador, 
Brazil. 

The Wachusett, a Federal steamer, was also in this neutral port ; and 
her commander. Napoleon Collins, conceived the utterly outrageous and das- 
tardly design of sinking the Confederate vessel at her anchorage, or captur- 
ing her by stealing upon her in an vmguarded moment, and towing her out to 
sea. The circumstances of the outrage were of peculiar atrocity. A little 
past midnight of 6th October, the "Wachusett slipped her cables, and bore 
down upon the Florida, when about one half the crew of the unsuspecting 
vessel were ashore. The Florida's officer on deck, when he saw the ap- 
proach of the Wachusett, actually hailed her to avoid an accidental col- 
lision as he feared ; little supposing that the Federal vessel was coming 
down under a fall head of steam with the diabolical design of sinking 
a defenceless vessel with her crew asleep beneath her decks. The blow, 
however, was not well delivered, striking the Florida in the stern and not 
amidships as intended. As the Wachusett drew off, she demanded the 
surrender of the vessel, incapable of resistance, and having in a few mo- 
ments boarded her, attached a hawser, and moving at the top of her speed, 
towed the Florida rapidly out to sea. Tlie outrage was not discovered by 
the Brazilian fleet until the Wachusett with her prize had got out to sea, 
and then some harmless shots were fired, which passed over her 
pennant. 

Of course Mr. Seward had to apologize to the Brazilian Government, 
and Capt. Collins had to go through certain forms of censure. But this 
was of no importance. Tlie diplomatic apology did not prevent the Florida 
fiom being held as a prize, and afterwards being " accidentally " sunk in 
Hampton Roads. Aud the official afl;ectation with Capt. Collins did 
not prevent the press from lauding him, and the New York Herald from 
saying : " Certainly, no page of history can show a more daring achieve- 
ment " — another illustration, by the way, of how the North has measured 
glory in the war by the very degrees of wantonness and outrage. 



INVASION OF MISSOURI BY GEN. PEICE. 

In the close of this chay»ter and in the group of events of the war, in 
I864j outside of the grand campaigns of Yirginia and Georgia, we may 



554: THE LOST CAUSE. 

properly place here a brief record of what was the most important of the 
detached military operations of 1864. This was a niovement in the Trans- 
Mississippi, the invasion of Missouri by Gen, Price. It appears to have 
been altogether a detached operation, having no relation to the campaigna 
east of the Mississippi, and with but little effect on the general issues of 
the Avar. It is therefore narrated in a small space. 

About the middle of September, Gen. Price entered Missouri, crossing 
the State line from Arkansas, by the way of Pocahontas and Poplar Bluff. 
He had about ten thousand men under the command of Gens. Shelby, 
Marmadukc, and Fagan. From Poplar Bluff, Price advanced, by the 
way of Bloomfield, to Pilot Knob, driving before him the various outpost 
garrisons, and threatening Cape Girardeau. Pilot Knob was evacuated, 
and Price thus obtained a strongly fortified position, eighty-six miles south 
of St. Louis, the terminus of the railroad, and the depot for supply of the 
lower outposts. 

Gen. Rosecrans, the Federal commander in the Department of Mis- 
souri, was largely superiour in force to Price ; but he appears to have 
been unable to concentrate or handle his troops, and the country was sur- 
prised to find Gen. Price moving almost without molestation through the 
large State of Missouri, doing incalculable mischief, and kindling the hopes 
of the Confederates with another campaign of wonders in this remote re- 
2:iou 6f the war. From Pilot Knob Gen. Price moved north to the Mis- 
souri River, and continued up that river towards Kansas. Gen. Custis, 
commanding the Department of Kansas, immediatel}^ collected such forces 
as he could to repel the invasion ; while four brigades of Federal cavalry, 
numbering about eight thousand men and eight rifled guns, were operat- 
ing in Price's rear. On the 23d October, Gen. Price was brought to bat- 
tle on the Big Blue, and defeated. Gens. Marmaduke and Cabell being 
taken prisoners, and the Confederates losing nearly all of their artil- 
lery. On the following day. Price was again attacked, near Fort 
ocott, and obliged hurriedly to retreat into Kansas. He then turned 
down to the south, and crossed the Arkansas River, above Fort Smith, 
into the Indian Territory, He subsequently went into winter quar- 
ters in the south of Arkansas, his men in worse plight than when they 
started from that State, and the conclusion of his campaign an undoubted 
failure. 

The fact is that Gen, Price had retreated from Missouri, not so much 
under the stress of the enemy's arms as from inherent faults in his own 
entei-prise. He had declared that his invasion was not a raid, that he came 
to possess Missouri ; but the breadth of the excursion, its indefinitencss, 
and the failure to concentrate on important points, ruined him. While 
his command roamed through the State, his men, brought to the vicinity 
of their old homes, which they had not seen for several years, were ex- 



price's eetkeat feom anssouKi. 555 

posed to unusual temptations to desert ; and instead of being reinforced 
by recruits, his command was diminislied by desertions at every step of 
the march, and almost ran through his fingers before he left the State. 
With this sad conclusion of Gen. Price's expedition, the last hope was 
banished from the Soutliern mind of possessing Missouri ; and the opera- 
tions of the Trans-Mississippi may be said now to have made their laet 
figure of importance in the war. 



CHAPTER XXXIY. 

THE PKE8IDENTIA.L CANVASS OF 1864 IN" THE NORTH, — ITS RELATIONS TO THK MILITARY 0AM* 
PAIGN. — REVIEW OF PARTIES IN THE NORTH. — A GENERAL DISTINCTION FOUNDED ON TWO 
QUESTIONS. — COMPOSITION OF THE PARTY OPPOSING MR. LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION.— 

THE DOCTRINES OF THE BLACK REPUBLICAN PARTY IMPOSSIBLE TO BE DEFINED. HOW 

THE PARTY CHANGED AND SHIFTED THROUGH THE WAR. OPINIONS OF MR. WEBSTER AND 

MR. CLAY. — MODERN VERIFICATION OF MR. CLAy's CHARGE OP " AMALGAMATION." 

POLICY OF THE BLACK REPUBLICAN PARTY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR. MR. LIN- 
COLN'S INSTINCTS OF UNWORTHINESS. — HOW THE PEACE PARTY IN THE NORTH MADE THE 
FIRST FALSE STEP. — GROWTH OF THE POWER OF LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. — ITS MEAS- 
URES OF TERROUR. MODERATION OF THE CONFEDERACY TOWARDS " UNION MEN " AND 

DISSENTIENTS. SOME ACCOUNT OF ARRESTS IN THE NORTH. LINCOLN'S DETECTIVE SYS- 
TEM. COMPARATIVE IMPOSSIBILITY OF MAINTAINING AN OPPOSITION PARTY IN THE 

NORTH. INFAMOUS CONDUCT OF " WAR DEMOCRATS." THE CONSERVATIVE PHALANX IN 

THE CONGRESS AT WASHINGTON. — A RECORD OF ITS VOTES. — REASSURANCE OF THE CON- 
SERVATIVE PARTY IN 1864. — THE PARTY ISSUES OF 1864, WITH REFERENCE TO "RECON- 
STRUCTION." — CONVENTION OF THE GOVERNiVIENT PARTY AT BALTIMORE. — ITS " PLAT- 
FORM." PRETERMISSION OF THE CONDITION OF STATE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. HOW 

THIS CONDITION WAS AFTERWARDS INSERTED. MR. LINCOLN'S RESCRIPT, " TO WHOM IT 

MAY CONCERN." HISTORY OF THE NIAGARA FALLS COMMISSION. HOW MR. LINCOLN'S 

PASSPORT WAS MADE A POLITICAL CARD. — DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION AT CHICAGO. — ITS 
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. — m'cLELLAN's LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. — SLAVERY NO 
LONGER AN ISSUE IN THE WAR. — THE CONSTITUTIONAL POINT AT ISSUE BETWEEN m'cLEL- 

LAN AND LINCOLN. THE RADICAL WING OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. THE CLEVELAND 

CONVENTION. THE ISSUES OF THE CANVASS AS BETWEEN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, THE 

GOVERNMENT PARTY, AND THE RADICAL PARTY. — HOW THE TWO LAST INSTEAD OF THE 
TWO FIRST COALESCED. — " RECONSTRUCTION " ANTE-DATED. — A FAINT HINT OF NEGRO 
SUFFRAGE. — THE WRITTEN ISSUES OF THE CANVASS BUT LITTLE CONSIDERED. — THE CON- 
TEST MAINLY ON THE FOURTH RESOLUTION OF THE CHICAGO " PLATFORM." — ELOQUENCE 
OF THE m'cLELLAN CAMPAIGN PAPERS. — THE ELECTION OF m'CLELLAN IMPOSSIBLE IN 

VIEW OF THE FEDERAL VICTORIES OF 1864. — TRIUMPH OF MR. LINCOLN AND HIS PARTY. 

ANALYSIS OF THE POPULAR VOTE IN HIS ELECTION. A LARGE ELEMENT OF ENCOURAOB- 

MENT IN IT. — THE VICTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION POSTPONED. 

"We have already referred to the great consideration which attached to 
the Presidential contest in the North which was now to take place ; we 
have stated that it gave a new hope for the South in 1864 ; and we have 



POLrnCAL PARTIES IN THE NOKTH. 557 

indicated that the political campaign of this year was, in the minds of the 
Confederate leaders, scarcely less important than the military. Indeed, the 
two were indissolubly connected ; and the calculation in Richmond was 
that if military matters could even be held in a negative condition, the 
Democratic party in the North would have tlie opportunity of appealing 
to the popular impatience of the war, and bringing it to a close on terms 
acceptable to the great mass of the Southern people. 

For a thorough discussion of this political campaign it will be well to 
make a rapid review and analysis of parties in the North, even at the risk 
of some repetition to the reader. 

Parties in the North were divided by very distinct lines. There 
w^ere two questions upon which the division took place. One of these 
referred to the supremacy of the Constitution as opposed to military neces- 
sity — real or pretended. The other had reference to the relative powers 
of the Union and the States. On both these questions the party in power 
held loose and careless opinions, employing force wherever it would avail 
for military or partisan advantage. The opposition contended for a strict 
observance of the provisions of the Constitution and of the rights of the 
States. This was the general distinction. 

But widely as the theories of these two parties separated them on 
questions touching the sanctity and scope of the Constitution, there was 
still a margin of difference left between the views of the Northern Demo- 
cratic party and the Southern doctrines upon which the right of Secession 
was founded. The difference, however, concerned only the last alternative 
of Secession. According to the Northern view, the Union was inviolable 
and perpetual, and all grievances must be redressed within the Union by 
remedies which respected its integrity. According to the Southern view, 
Secession was a rightful remedy for evils otherwise incurable, sanctioned 
by the precedent and precepts of the men of 1776. 

This latter doctrine had so limited a support at the North, however, 
that it was totally unknown in the controversies of parties. There, all, or 
nearly all, assumed that the Union was permanent and inviolable — differ- 
ences of opinion turning upon the powers of the Union ; the powers of the 
Federal Government ; the rightfulness of extra-constitutional measures in 
time of war ; and the expediency, and most judicious means of coercion. 

The party in opposition to Mr. Lincoln's Administration — most properly 
designated as the Constitutional party — was composed chiefly of Demo- 
crats, but largely interspersed with Whigs of the stamp of Wm. B. Reed 
of Philadelphia, Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, Reverdy Johnson 
of Maryland, "Wm. B. Crittenden, and the like. In partisan pariance they 
were called " Copperheads," and they were reinforced in the debates, 
though generally opposed in the votes, by a class of men who had split 
away from the Democratic party, called " War Democrats." 



558 ' THE LOST CAUSE. 

It would be difficult to state in precise terms the political doctrines 
confessedly held by the Black Republican party. After a patient effort 
we have desisted from, the attempt. The more responsible avowals and 
professions of its leaders cannot be reconciled with the fanatical utter- 
ances of its less conspicuous and more active representatives. Its po'-icy as 
well as its professions were shaped to suit the liour ; and changed with 
evey varying phase of the war. The party was conservative and apolo- 
getic in moments of distrust and apprehension ; but always ready to over- 
step the limitations of the Constitution, and to burst through the restraints 
of law, in seasons of confidence and success. It was as unfaithful to its 
own promulgated schedules of faith, and programmes of policy, as to the 
laws of the land. It alike disregarded its oaths of fidelity to the Constitu- 
tion and pledges of adherence to specific lines of policy. It would, there- 
fore, be quite useless to quote from its several creeds and platforms, to 
ascertain its principles as a party ; for it would be folly to judge of its 
character by its professions. 

In sketching the career of one of the parties of the North, we neces- 
sarily present a history of that which constantly opposed it. Tlie imme- 
diate subject of our review will, therefore, be the Black Republican party ; 
which had absolute control of the war throughout, and which, in claim- 
ing the credit of its results, assumes the responsibility of its transactions. 

As composed at the time of the election of Mr, Lincoln, this party was 
not precisely the same as it had been during the first years of its career. 
It was a party built up, as we have seen, through many years of efibrt, 
upon the agitation against slavery. In the beginning it was despised alike 
for its weakness in numbers and for its fanaticism. It received its ideas 
from the Anti-Slavery Society of England, and there is no doubt it was 
fostered during its early career by pecuniary subsidies from that same 
organization. After a few years, it began to acquire importance in the 
political contests of the country, as holding a balance of votes capable of 
turning the scales in several of the Northern States, where the great par- 
ties were nearly equipoised. Although it finally absorbed the great mass 
of the Northern Whig party, it was characterized in terms of severe repro- 
bation by both Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster. The latter said, with 
prophetic truth : " If these fanatics and Abolitionists get power into their 
hands, they will override the Constitution, set the Supreme Court at de- 
fiance, change and make laws to suit themselves. Finally, they will bank- 
rupt the country, and deluge it with blood." 

Mr. Clay, in describing its purposes, said of it, in words well nigh veri- 
fied already : " The ultras go for abolition and amalgamation, and their 
object is to unite in marriage the laboring white man and the black 
woman, and to reduce the white laboring man to the despised and de- 
graded condition of the black man." 



NOKTHERN DOCTKINE OF " AMALGAMATION." 559 

The proclaimed purpose of the war of tlie Black Kepublican jarty 
npon the Constitution, and of the organization which they proposed of the 
Union, was the abolition of slavery, and the securing of equal rights be- 
fore the law to the African race. It is difficult to conceive how a party 
sliould meditate and plan a revolution of the Government and a radical 
rovisal of the Constitution for such a purpose, without desiring to elevate 
the negro to a platform of social as well as political equality with the 
•white man. 'Nor is proof wanting of the truth of Mr. Clay's grave impu- 
tation in this regard. The organs of the party have not been very reticent 
or secretive on this subject. From a vast multitude of similar utterances 
we quote a few. Tlie New York Tribune often iterates the assertion that 
" if a white man pleases to marry a "black woman, the mere fact that she is 
black gives no one a right to prevent or set aside such a marriage." The 
New York Independent is fond of a theory, that the German, Irish, negro, 
and other races have come to America, not for the purpose, each, of propa- 
gating its distinct species, " but each to join itself to each, till all together 
shall be built up into the monumental nation of the earth ; " " the negro 
of the South growing paler with every generation, till at last he com- 
pletely hides his face under the snow." Enamoured with the character of 
Toussaint L'Ouverture, it says to those who cherish the prejudice of colour 
and caste, that " they must cease to call unclean those whom God has 
cleansed, that they must acknowledge genius whatever be the colour of 
the skin that enwraps it ; and that they must prepare themselves to wel- 
come to the leadership of our armies and our senate, as Southern substi- 
tutes for Jeff Davis and his drunken Comus-like crew, that have so long 
bewitched and despoiled us, black Toussaints, who, by their superiour 
talents and principles, shall receive the grateful homage of an appreciative 
and admiring nation." Gen. Banks said, when in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, that " iu regard to whether the white or black race was su- 
periour, he proposed to wait till time should develop whether the white 
race should absorb the black, or the black the white." "Wendell Phillips, 
the ablest and the boldest of them all, said, in 1863 : "Bemember this, 
the youngest of you, that on the 4th day of July, 18G3, you heard a man 
say, that in the light of all history, in virtue of every page he ever read, he 
was an amalgamationist to the utmost extent. I have no hope for the 
future, as this country has no past, but in that sublime mingling of races, 
which is God's own method of civilizing and elevating the w^orld. God, 
by the events of His providence, is crushing out the hatred of race that 
has crippled this country until to-day." Theodore Tilton also said, that, 
" the history of the world's civilization is written in one word — which 
many are afraid to speak, and many more afraid to hear — and that is, 
amalgamation." 

These citations are abundant to show the animus and purposes of the 



560 THE LOST CAUSE. 

men in tbe front rank of the Republican party, who have always brouglit 
their colleagues, when necessary, np to their own standard and position. 
It is not pretended, however, to deny that there were milder phases of 
opinion in the Republican party. There were those who aimed only at 
the abolition of 'slavery ; on the idea expressed years before by Mr. Sew- 
ard, and reiterated by Mr. Lincoln, that an irrepressible conflict existed in 
the Union between slave society and free society, which could only be 
allayed by making the Union all slave or all free. There were very few, 
if any, who were not determined to use the war as an instniment of aboli- 
tion, and to prosecute it, not merely for restoring the authority of the 
Union, but also for securing the extinction of slavery in the South. No 
such purpose was responsibly avowed in the beginning ; but it was fully 
developed by the summer of 1864, when it became, as we shall see, very 
soon a leading issue between the Lincoln and M'Clellan parties. 

Such were the antecedents, character, and composition of the party 
which had succeeded in the Presidential election of 1860. The shock 
which the announcement of the result gave to the country was very great ; 
but it was not greater than that which was felt by the successful party itself. 
Composed of extreme fanatical elements, and brought for the first time 
face to face Mith the serious and grave responsibilities of oflice, under that 
Union to which so many of them had avowed a bitter hostility, and under 
that Constitution to which they were obliged to swear support, and which 
they designed to subvert, they at once began to realize the serious diffi- 
culty of their position. That which most added to their embarrassment, 
however, was the fact that they had carried the election by only a plural- 
ity vote. They had received no support in one half of the Union ; and 
in the other half, they had triumphed by only a majority of suffrages. 
They could not command a majority in either House of Congress ; and 
they felt that if the election could be held over again, the classes which 
were esteemed to embrace the intelligence, worth, and patriotism of the 
country, would rally together, make common cause against them, and de- 
feat their accession to power. 

Thus circumstanced, it was the interest of the Republican party, as a 
party, that the secession movement should go on, and that the threatened 
dissolution of the Union should be consummated. We have already seen 
signs of their policy secretly to exasperate the feelings and confirm the 
purposes of the South ; and, with professions of conservatism and devotion 
to the Union, to secure to themselves in administering the Government 
the support of the classes who had opposed them at the North. 

We might make here a large accumulation of proofs of the fact that 
the Black Republican party, on its accession to power, wanted dissolution 
and wanted war ; but we are not aware that it is now denied. It is a his- 
torical truth. It is a historical conviction, confirmed alike by the action 



HTPOCEISY OF THE EEPUBLICAN PARTY. 561 

the interests, and the avowals of the party. It is indeed a fact which they 
have taken no pains to conceal. 

Although this party, after securing unrestrained command of the power 
and patronage of Government, shaped its policy at will throughout the 
war, and prosecuted their measures with haughty and arrogant indiffer- 
ence to the protests and resistance of the opposition, yet they had coma 
into posesssion of office with alarm and humility. Not only were they in 
a minority of numbers, but they felt that they were hostile to the Constitu- 
tion to which they were about to swear fidelity, and to the principles on 
which it had been administered from its foundation. They felt conscious 
that their success in the election had given a shock to the institutions of 
the country, and that both their capacity for administering the Govern- 
ment in the spirit of its institutions, and their fidelity to the Union and to 
the organic law were greatly, and with reason, distrusted. Mr. Lincoln's 
personal conduct in the emergency betrayed these instincts of unworthi- 
ness. His speeches during the progress from Springfield to Washington 
were a continual apology for his party and for his election ; and his well- 
remembered inaugural address was an appeal to the country against being 
judged by the avowals and proclaimed tenets of the party which had 
elected him. It may be said that by the moderate declarations of the 
Republican party at the outset of the war, the suspicions of the conserva- 
tive classes of the IS^orth were allayed, and the opposition party completely 
disarmed. Care had been taken to withhold these pacific utterances until 
too late for them to reclaim the South. The ITorth placed entire faith in 
them ; the South placed none at all. They failed to save Virginia, North 
Carolina, and Tennessee ; and it required the most energetic employment 
of force, threat, and cajolery, even to retain Maryland and Kentucky. To 
reclaim the South, however, was not the object. The aim was to yoke 
the whole North into support of the measures which were meditated, and 
which it was intended gradually to develop. The scheme completely suc- 
ceeded. The Constitutional peace party were silenced everywhere. The 
war feeling grew with astonishing rapidity. It carried away many of the 
more prominent men of the opposition. But it is to be admitted that from 
the reduction of Sumter down to the close of the war there was a Con- 
stitutional party in the North, which, although unable to do more than to 
make continual protest against the conduct of the ruling party, yet did 
make this protest with ability, manliness, consistency, and dignity. The 
difiicTJilty was, it had not power during the war to put any check upon its 
career. 

Those who have studied the characteristics and idiosyncracies of the 
Northern people, and have observed their fondness for an affected enthu- 
siasm, and their proneness to give way to gregarious impulses, however 
absm-d and reprehensible, were not surprised at the alacrity with which 
36 



562 THE LOST CAUSE. 

the masses of even moderate men ruslied into the war movement, at the 
piping of the war party, and at the appeal of the drum and fife. So soon 
as individuals found the throng tending that way, they rushed enthusiasti- 
cally into what seemed the popular current ; and the very men who but 
yesterday were loud in condemnation of the aggressive and incendiary 
purposes of the Kepublicans, to-day made amends for their tardy Unionism, 
by a precipitate enlistment in the ranks of the Administration. 

It is the first step which costs. The peace party was a peace party no 
longer. A few consistent men remained, but the party disappeared for a 
period. Conservatism underwent almost a total eclipse. Opposed to war ; 
averse to the principle of coercion ; believing in the superiour efl&cacy of 
pacific over belligerent measures for restoring the Union ; regretting every 
blow that was struck and every drop of blood that was shed in the contest, 
the party of the Constitution, of fraternal Union, of law, of order, and of 
peace, found itself compelled, first in one step, then in another, then in all, 
to support the war, to vote men and means for its vigorous prosecution, for 
sixty days, for ninety days, for the first campaign, and then, on and on, to 
a successful conclusion. They thought to bide their time, and to employ 
every opportunity that should ofier in the interests of peace ; but the op- 
portunity never came ; the fury of the war-storm, increasing as it pro- 
gressed, and engulfing and carrying away everything in its course, swept 
down all who talked of peace. The vast patronage brought to the Admin- 
istration made it omnipotent, and enabled it to appeal with efi"ect to the 
passions alike of the avaricious, the ambitious, the adventurous of all sorts 
and conditions of men. As the costliness of the war increased, and tlie 
number of offices and the profitableness of contracts augmented, so its 
powoi* in the country grew and waxed more and more irresistible. 

We are not inclined to judge the peace party of the ITorth too harshly. 
The arguments which led them to sanction and sustain the first measures 
of the Administration were such as could not well be resisted by a party 
believing in the inviolability of the Union, and the duty of suppressing 
all attempt at disruption. They were beguiled into the first belligerent 
measures by the conservative tone and pledges of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. 
Seward ; and they were, moreover, deceived into the belief that prompt 
and vigorous steps were the surest means of preventing a protracted, ex- 
pensive, and bloody war. It was these first steps, taken under a sense of 
duty to the Union, taken, as they thought, really in the interests of peace, 
that involved them inextricably in the war. They ought to have remem- 
bered that all negotiation ends with the first blow and the flow of blood ; 
that, then, it is a question of force, and no longer one of right and reason ; 
that war is like that cave of bones and carcases in mythology into which 
led many tracks, but out of it, none. 

Much of the apparent unanimity which prevailed in favour of the war 



MODERATION OF THE CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES. 563 

was the result of terroiir. The people of the North seem to have a pecu- 
liar dread of public opinion. The great majority will not only surrender 
their own convictions to what happens to be the popular caprice, but they 
will join the populace in persecuting those who entertain their own pre- 
vious convictions. It was so in the crisis under consideration. But very 
effective measures were taken by the Government in aid of this spontane- 
ous instinct of terrour. They revived the system of espionage and arrests 
which had been employed in France by Robespierre and Fouche. At 
first, it was pretended that the arrested persons held secret correspondence 
with the Southern authorities ; but soon all disguise and hypocrisy were 
thrown off, and arrests were made on charges, even suspicion, of mere dis- 
loyalty. It was held that the safeguards which the Constitution threw 
around citizens, protecting them " in their persons, houses, papers, and 
effects against unreasonable searches and seizures ; " guarantying them a 
speedy trial in open court of law, and giving them by the writ of habeas 
corpus the right to know at once the charge against them, and to have the 
validity of that charge examined by a judge having power to discharge ; — 
it was held that these provisions were put in abeyance by the state of war, 
and that the liberty of the citizen was not to be considered when the na- 
tion's life was at stake. 

At the South, where great armies were penetrating and beleaguering 
the country, where public and domestic danger were everywhere and at 
all hours present, and where disaffection could at any moment bring fear- 
ful calamity upon the community, these arrests by order of Government 
were rare. It was a constant complaint of Generals in the field, and of 
civil officers in the municipal service, that when dangerous persons guilty 
of overt acts of treason to the Confederacy, were arrested and sent to Rich- 
mond, they were, as a general rule, released on the most rm satisfactory 
explanations, and let loose again upon the country. Much has been said 
of the sufferings, humiliations, and spoliations inflicted upon " Union " men 
in the South ; and infinite, ingenious, and unblushing falsehoods have been 
published on the subject ; but when the period arrives for a dispassionate 
examination of real facts, the reader of the history will be amazed at the 
moderation which was observed by the Southern people, more especially 
by the Confederate Government, towards a class of persons capable of so 
much mischief in a society threatened by imminent and fearful peril from 
within and without. 

But at the North, there was no necessity for arbitrary arrests. The 
country was not invaded. The war was at a distance ; and was offensive, 
not defensive. Except in portions of the Border States, the public sentiment 
was unanimous as against the South ; opinions only differing as to the 
best means of reducing the distant " rebellion." Yet a system of terrour 
was established, which could only have been warrantable at the South, 



6Qi: THE LOST CAUSE. 

aud was held to be unnecessary even there, l^o shadow of excuse existed 
for considering the North or any State of the North as disloyal ; on the 
contrary, Democrats and Republicans poured out their money by millions, 
and sent their young men by hundreds of thousands to the support of the 
flag. Yet in the first weeks of the war, a system of arbitrary and despotic 
seizure and imprisonment was inaugurated, which continued even after the 
surrenders of Lee and Johnston. The number of arbitrary arrests that 
were made in the whole period of the war is variously estimated at from 
ten to thirty thousand. The great mass of arrested persons never had a 
trial, and knew nothing of the charges, if any at all, on which they were 
imprisoned. In the great majority of cases, not only was the writ of habe- 
as corpus refused, but applications to be examined by officers selected by 
the Government itself were refused. Prisoners, suddenly arrested and 
dragged to prison, without an opportunity of seeing their families or 
arranging for the continuance of their business, after long incarcerations, 
were not only denied an examination of their cases, but they were offi- 
cially informed that the employment of counsel was distasteful to the 
Government, and would prejudice their applications for trial and release. 
Though arrests were made at the suggestion of anonymous letters, yet 
letters from the persons imprisoned applying for release or for trial were 
left unopened, and often returned in that condition to their authors. 
Finally, it was determined, that not only should the ground of arrest be 
withheld from the imprisoned, but the fact of arrest be withheld from the 
public ; detective officers being prohibited from reporting the cases of 
arrest to the press, or permitting an inspection of their books. Of course 
under this system, the number of denunciations against suspected persons 
became burdensome to the Central Government ; and such paragraphs as 
the following began to appear in the official newspapers : 

" Eight hundred names are now entered on the hooks of the secret police in New- 
York city, of persons suspected of treason, and many arrests will be made." — H. Y. 
Tribune, Sept. 6, 1861. 

" A large number of arrests ai'e daily made at the North, the number averaging ten or 
twelve a day. These are made generally on complaints lodged with the departments at 
Washington. The Government is somewhat annoyed and astonished that petty cases of 
treason should be sent there for consideration. Any military commander can commit for 
treasonable acts, and the local officers should promptly act themselves." — Hartford 
Courant, Sept. 6, ISG-i. 

The arrests soon became very flagrant in their manner and character. 
Clergymen were seized while at prayer at the altar on the sabbath-day. 
Judges were seized for judicial opinions rendered on the bench. Ladies 
were seized and imprisoned, subjected to nameless insults, forbidden the 
visits of friends, hurried from prison to prison, and indecently treated by 



KEIGN OF TERKOUK IN THE NORTH. 665 

officers. Mourners were seized at funerals, while burying their dead 
Young children were arrested and imprisoned for months, in some cases 
for years. The victims of these proceedings were in many iustancea 
driven to lunacy and to suicide, some of them dying under their severe 
usage. Tlie detective system took the feature of eaves-dropping, and 
domestic servants were enlisted in the pay of Government. Arrests wei-e 
often made on the most frivolous and contemptible pretences. A father, 
hearing that his son was shot instantly dead in battle, exclaimed, "That ia 
good," meaning to express his relief at the thought that he had escaped 
the agonies of a lingering, painful death ; he was arrested for the " dis- 
loyal " expression, hurried precipitately to Camp Chase, and imprisoned 
for two months before the privilege of explanation was accorded him. 
Two ladies of undoubted loyalty were arrested in a carriage in the streets, 
for raising their handkerchiefs, and passing them several times over their 
months. They were suspected of making signs to prisoners ; whereas they 
had been eating an orange. The system of terrour was employed not only 
in the Border States, but was put in practice everywhere. In far in- 
teriour towns, where the idea of danger from the rebels was supremely 
ridiculous, it was as active as in Washington city or 'New Orleans. A 
single clergyman in Central ISTew York, wrote thirty letters in two months, 
sending lists of his neighbours whose arrest he demanded. An order was 
issued by the President to all policemen in the country, commanding their 
services in these seizures. State machinery was thus brought to tlie help 
of this nefarious business. The system was vigorously employed for parti- 
san purposes. " Democrat " was held to be synonymous with " traitor," 
and being a " Democrat " was often the only ground for arrest. 

We make this recital to show how impossible it was, for a while, to 
maintain an opposition party at the North. The power of a Government, 
wielding a patronage of many hundred millions of dollars per annum, and 
supported by an army of more than a million of soldiers, half of them kept 
habitually in the North, and allowed to resolve themselves into a mob on 
the slightest pretence, was too great to be opposed by reason and argu- 
ment, when brought to bear without scruple and with despotic ferocity 
upon a helpless and paralyzed op2>osition. Passive submission to despotic 
rule, being a necessity, became a temporary dutj'. We have no heart nor 
right to censure those who remained consistent though often silent oppo- 
nents of the Administration, during such a period of force and terrourism. 
But there was a class of original conservatives, who did not remain pas- 
sive ; who went over heart and hand and soul to the Eepublican party ; 
and who vied with the minions of power in intemperance of speech and 
violence of action. The principal authors of the enormities that were 
pei-petrated will receive the due sentence of history ; but what will be the 
ignominy that will attach to the names of men, who, in the character of 



566 THE LOST CAUSE. 

" "War Democrats," deserted their political associations, apostatized from 
the principles which they had all their lives upheld ; espoused the arbi- 
trary doctrines, seconded the despotic practices, imbibed the truculent ani- 
mosities of the ascendant party ; and prosecuted the war in the vindictive 
spirit and for the revolutionary purposes avowed by the worst enemies of 
the Union and the Constitution ! 

In spite, however, of the ferocity of the Government and its minions, 
there was never a day during the war in which the conservative party 
failed to present a small phalanx in Congress to make opposition to the poli- 
cy of the Government, and to raise a continual protest against its uncon- 
stitutional proceedings. Did sj)ace suffice, it would be interesting to re- 
capitulate here the several votes which this small party gave upon succes- 
Bive measures considered by Congress. A very few instances must serve 
to illustrate their courage and fidelity to the Constitution. 

Against the Confiscation Bill, the vote in the House of Representatives 
was 42 ; in the Senate, 13. Against the emancipation of the slaves of 
persons engaging in the rebellion, the vote in the House was 66 ; in the 
Senate, 11. Against striking out from the Confiscation Act the clause 
limiting the forfeiture to the ofi'ender's natural life, the vote in the House 
was 76 ; in the Senate, 13. The vote in the House against the resolution 
declaring that the United States ought to co-operate with any States in 
gradually abolishing slavery, was 36 ; in the Senate it was 10. Against 
the scheme of compensated emancipation in the District of Columbia, the 
vote in the Senate was 19, in the House 39. Against the proposition of 
ouquiry into the practicability of inaugurating a scheme of compensated 
emancipation in the Border States, the vote in the House was 52, Against 
the bill repealing the Fugitive Slave Act, the vote in the House was 62 ; 
in the Senate, 12, Against the bill authorizing a suspension of the writ of 
habeas corpus the vote (March 3, 1863) was 45, in the House ; in the 
Senate it would have been 13, but failed by accident to be taken by roll- 
call. This bill also indemnified the President and other officers of Govern- 
ment for arrests and seizures, not only in respect to subsequent but pre- 
vious acts. An eloquent protest against the bill was signed by thirty-six 
members, who moved ineffectually to have it placed on the journal. The 
Government frequently suiDpressed newspapers ; and the Postmaster- 
General forbade the transmission of journals characterized as disloyal 
through the mails. An effort to bring this subject before Congress was 
resisted by a majority of the House ; the vote in favour of considering 
some action in favour of the liberty of the press, was 54. Against the 
resolution in favour of submitting the Amendments for the abolition of 
slavery in the United States, the final vote in the House (January 3, 1865), 
was 56 ; in the Senate, 6. Against the bill by which it was proposed to 
limit the action of the President in the readmissioc of insurgent States, 



PABTT ISSUES OF lS6i m THE NOETH. 567 

overrun and subdued bj the Federal power, and to subject these States tc 
extra Constitutional conditions before readmission into the Union, the vote 
in the House was 60 ; in the Senate, 14. 

These examples are sufficient to show how a small Constitutional party 
in the IS^ortli held to their principles throughout the dark period of usur- 
patioii and despotism. As the conservative party became less awed by 
'■.errourism, they became less restrained in speech and action. In the 
progress of time, divisions began to arise in the Black Republican party, 
and protests to proceed from Black Republican politicians. Democrats, 
•who, absorl:)ed in military operations in the distant fields of campaign, had 
for some time given no attention to internal and domestic concerns, having 
the indisputable right of soldiers to speak their sentiments, began to give 
expression to the disgust and alarm" which the arbitrary proceedings of the 
Administration had naturally excited. Thus tlie opposition grew formi- 
dable as the term of Mr. Lincoln drew towards a close ; and parties for and 
against the Administration began to be organized, and issues of iDrinciple to 
be evolved and defined, for the approaching Presidential canvass. 

The party issues for 1864 turned in a measure upon the conditions of 
reconstruction ; and three sets of opinion on this subject were developed 
in the course of the canvass. The Constitutional party held to the ground 
that the sole rightful object of the war had been the suppression of the 
rebellion ; and that, so soon as the power of the rebel authorities in any 
State was crushed, the State was by that fact already restored to the 
Union, from which it had never been legally separated ; and nothing re- 
mained to be done but the restoration of the lawful State Government. 
This position was afterwards compendiously expressed by their candidate, 
Gen. McClellan, in the declaration : " The Union is the sole condition of 
peace — we ask no more." 

As will be seen in the sequel, the Administration or Government party 
went into the canvass on the issue of simple coercion ; proposing indeed to 
bring the insurgent States into the Union divested of slavery ; but divested 
by the expedient of an amendment of the Constitution. But the pressure 
of the contest forced them into the necessity of adding to their platform a 
requirement, upon States returning to the Union, that they should them- 
Belves abolish slavery as a condition precedent to readmission. They were, 
in other words, forced to abandon a Constitutional measure, and to sub- 
stitute an extra-constitutional one in its stead. 

The programme of the radical branch of the Black Republican party 
had been developed, some short time before, in the bill which passed Con- 
gress on the 3d of July, 1864, but which the President failed to sign, 
prescribing these three conditions as necessary preliminaries to the restora- 
tion of a seceded State to the Union : to wit, the disfranchisement by the 
States of the guilty leaders of the rebellion as to State officers ; the aboli- 



568 THE LOST CAUSE. 

tion of slavery by the act of the returning States themselves ; and the 
repudiation of the rebel debt, also by the act of these States. 

Another feature of this radical programme, but which had failed to be 
incorporated into the bill just mentioned, was, that no seceded State should 
vote in the Electoral College, nor be admitted to representation in Con- 
gress, until after proclamation by the President of its obedience to the laws 
of the United States, especially authorized by act of Congress passed ex 
pressly for the purpose. The project of requiring the admission of negroes 
tc full citizenship and suffrage, had not then taken the form of a distinct, 
express additional exaction. 

The ITational Convention of the Government party was held at Balti- 
more on the 7th of June, 1864. The votes were all given for Mr. Lincoln, 
except that of Missouri, which was cast for Gen. Grant. The ballot on the 
Vice-Presidency was nearly unanimous in favour of Mr. Andrew Johnson. 
A platform was unanimously adopted declaring in favour of maintaining 
the Union in its integrity and supreme authority against all enemies ; of 
quelling the rebellion by force of arms and duly punishing traitors for 
their crimes ; approving the determination of the Government not to com- 
promise with rebels, and to refuse all terms except an imconditional sub- 
mission to the Federal authority ; promising bounties to maimed soldiers ; 
upholding the acts and proclamations of the Executive in regard to slavery ; 
calling for an ameijdment of the Constitution abolishing slavery ; thank- 
ing the army and navy for gallant services ; approving and applauding 
the acts of the President, especially his measures taken against oj)en and 
secret foes ; declaring none worthy of confidence but such as endorsed this 
platform ; demanding the full protection of the laws of war for all men 
employed in the armies of the Union, without distinction of colour ; wel- 
coming foreign immigration ; approving the National Pacific Railroad ; 
pledging the national faith for the public debt ; and denouncing all at- 
tempts of foreign powers to supplant republican institutions in the Repub- 
lics of this continent. 

The project of making the abolition of slavery by each revolted State 
a condition precedent to the readmission of the State into the Union was 
not incorporated into this platform. On the contrary, the language of the 
second resolution implied an intentional pretermission of that condition, in 
prohibiting, as it did, the oflfer of any terms to the rcibels " except such as 
may be based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility, and re- 
turn to the Constitution and laws of the United States ; " the Convention 
seeming to rely upon the proposed amendment of the Constitution for 
efi"ecting that object. Mr. Lincoln, also, in the language which he em 
ployed in accepting the nomination of the Convention, took pains to 
exclude the idea of intending to require the abolition of slavery, as a con- 
dition of peace, by any other process than by means of an amendment to 



THE NTAGAEA FALLS COMMISSION. 569 

Qie Constitution. He said : " I approve the declaration in favour of s4 
amending the Constitution as to prohibit slavery throughout the nation. 
When tlie people in revolt, with a hundred days of explicit notice that they 
could, within those days, resume their allegiance, without the overthrow 
of their institutions, and that they could not resume it afterwards, elected 
to stand out, such amendment to the Constitution as is now propoced, 
became a fitting and necessary conclusion to the final success of the Union 
cause. Such alone can meet and cover all cavils. ]^ow, the uncondi- 
tional Union men, North and South, perceive its importance, and embrace 
it. In the joint names of Liberty and Union, let us labour to give it legal 
form and practical effect." He thus clearly declared that abolition by an 
amendment of the Constitution was the " legal form " of procedure, which 
" alone can meet and cover all cavils." But the pressure of the canvass 
soon drove him away from this position ; and forced him to propound a 
project for the abolition of slavery by unconstitutional proceeding. This 
project was interpolated by Mr. Lincoln into the platform of his party in his 
notable rescript of the 18th of July, dated from the Executive chamber, and 
addressed " To whom it may concern.''^ That extraordinary and unique 
partisan document was promulgated under the following circumstances : 

Early in the summer of 1864, the Confederate Government had sent, as 
we have seen, a commission of intelligent persons to Canada, as a con- 
venient and important theatre for the presence of a judicious agency. The 
commission held no specific authority themselves to participate directly in 
any conference with the Government at Washington looking to peace. In 
the action which they took, they went no further than to propose to confer 
on the expediency and preliminary conditions of such a meeting. The 
commissioners were Messrs. Clement C. Clay, James P. Holcombe, and 
Jacob Thompson. It is proper to observe that these persons were agents 
of the Confederate Executive ; that their nominations to any mission were 
never communicated to the Congress at Richmond ; and that they were 
paid out of the secret service fund. Using George N. Sanders and W. C. 
Jewett as intermediaries, they exchanged notes with Mr. Horace Greeley, 
with a view to obtain from President Lincoln, through the influence of 
that well-known politician, a safe-conduct to the city of Washington. 
This correspondence with Mr. Greeley commenced on the 12th July, 1864. 
By the 17th of the month, the President seemed to have consented to grant 
the safe-conduct ; and Mr. Greeley had repaired to Niagara, apparently to 
deliver it to the commissioners. But it was soon developed in correspond- 
ence that the commissioners had no particular authority from their Gov- 
ernment themselves to enter upon the subject of peace ; and that Mr. Lin- 
coln's passport, in terms, implied that its bearers should be ex-pressly ac- 
credited to his Government on that subject. The commissioners could not 
therefore accept or make use of the paper. After various explanations. 



570 THE LOST CAUSE. 

another paper finally came from Washington, addressed " To whom it 
might concern," and declaring, that any person or persons, having au- 
thority to control the armies then at war with the United States, bear- 
ing a proposition to treat, which should " embrace the restoration of peace, 
the integrity of the whole Union, and the abmidomnent of slavery / " 
should have safe-conduct both ways ; and their proposition would be re- 
ceived and considered by the Executive Government of the United States. 
This paper, alike with the others, was useless to the Confederate commis- 
sioners, who neither had authority to control the armies of the Confed- 
erate States, nor commission to treat directly on terms of peace, nor dispo- 
sition to enter into conference with a power indecently and arrogantly 
assuming to dictate in advance the conditions of negotiation. This, Mr. 
Lincoln of course knew ; and it could not be pretended that his " pass- 
port " was offered in good faith. It was proposed in no expectation that 
it would be accepted. It bore the ear-marks of a mere partisan docu- 
ment. Those who concocted it felt that so rude a rejection as it gave to 
the overtures for a conference, would prejudice Mr. Lincoln with the 
country, which was earnestly desirous of peace ; and that it was necessary 
to interpose the popularity of abolition as an offset to the disfavour which 
the rejection of a peace conference must excite. In fact, it was not pre- 
tended that the paper was designed for any other than a campaign pur- 
pose ; and the frivolity of the President's proceeding was excused on the 
plea that the object of the commissioners in Canada, in opening the corre- 
spondence, was to make capital for the opposition party of the ITorth. 
The personal surroundings of the commissioners in Canada were referred 
to by the Government press in confirmation of the truth of this imputa- 
tion. Such is the history of this after-thought, of making abolition by the 
States in revolt a condition of their readmission into the Union ; such was 
the manner and occasion of interpolating this additional plank in the plat- 
form of the Government party. The party itself had pretermitted it at 
Baltimore in June. The radical spirits had supplied the omission in the 
bill for reconstructing the revolted States, which they had succeeded in 
carrying through Congress on the 3d of July. The President had virtually 
vetoed this bill, on the ground, taken in his speech accepting the nomina- 
tion, that the only " legal form " of abolishing slavery was by means of 
the Constitutional amendment, called for by the Baltimore resolutions. 
What, therefore, the radical spirits of the party had failed to accomplish, 
the action of the Confederate commissioners and the reputation of George 
Sanders for political intrigue, had succeeded in achieving. 

The National Convention of the Democratic party did not meet until 
after the appearance of this paper. It convened at Chicago on the 29th 
of August. Outside of the Convention there was a warm contest between 
the friends of Gen. McClellan and those who desired the nomination of a 



V THE CHICAGO CONVENTIGIT. 571 

candidate less committed to the coercive policy, and less implicated in the 
war. This struggle did not turn uj^on a sufficiently tangible issue to give 
it importance. As a Union party, the great body of the opposition party 
was committed to the war as the only practicable means of preserving and 
restoring the Union. Gen. McClellan was known to be earnestly desirous 
of peace, and of peace on the single and simple basis of a restoration of the 
Union under the Constitution as it stood. This was the only ground on 
which the conservative party could go before the people in the canvass, 
and hope to succeed in the election. It w^ould have been vain to expect 
success upon the principles of the very few Democrats and conservatives 
who believed, and believed correctly, that the war had been unrighteous 
and iniquitous in its leading object, no less than in the manner in which it 
had been conducted. The great body of the opposition concurred with 
Gen. McClellan in the opinion that secession was unwarrantable and in- 
iquitous, and that it ought to be resisted by all the power of the Union. 
They considered, therefore, that the war was righteous in its object, and 
only iniquitous in the manner in which it had been prosecuted. Reflect- 
ing these views held by the mass of his party, and having no competitor 
for the nomination favoured by them, he was nominated with little if any 
opposition when the vote came on in the body of the Convention. Mr. 
George H. Pendleton was selected as the second candidate on the ticket, 
in a manner altogether flattering and creditable to that staunch and con- 
sistent defender of the Constitution. 

The Convention unanimously adopted a platform declaring their un- 
swerving fidelity to the Union ; calling for a convention of all the States 
looking to the restoration of peace on the basis of a Federal Union of all 
the States ; denouncing the military interference which had been practised 
in recent elections in the Border States ; declaring that the aim and object 
of the Democratic party were to preserve the Federal Union and rights 
of the States unimpaired ; reprobating the system of usm-pation, tyranny, 
and despotism which the Administration had wantonly and systematically 
pursued throughout the war ; reprehending the Government's cruel neg- 
lect of the Union prisoners of war ; and tendering their sympathy and 
pledging their future protection to the soldiers and sailors of the army and 
navy of the United States. 

Gen. McClellan's letter of acceptance soon after appeared, and by its 
pacific tone and conciliatory terms, removed much of the objection which 
the extreme peace men of his party had felt to his nomination. Affirming 
the necessity of preserving the Union entire in the most cogent terms ; he 
declared, that its preservation " was the sole avowed object for which the 
war was commenced ; " that " it should have been conducted for that 
object only ; " that it should have been conducted on the principles of con- 
siliation and compromise ; that the re-establishment of the Union must be 



572 THE LOST CAUSE. 

the indispensable condition in any settlement ; and that " tliej should ex- 
haust all the resources of statesmanship to secure such a peace, to re-estab- 
lish the Union, and to secure for the future the constitutional rights of 
every State.' 

Except in the important particular that the Government party pro* 
posed, in its amended platform, to abolish slavery by an extra-constitu- 
tional means, there was no great difference between the positions of these 
two parties in regard to slavery itself. The war had, by the summer of 
1864, rendered the continuance of the institution impracticable ; though 
Gen. Grant's declaration, made as early as August, 1862, that it was then 
dead and could not be resurrected, was certainly premature. By the 
summer of 1861, however, the fate of slavery had, in fact, been sealed. 
It probably could not have existed if the Confederacy had been estab- 
lished. It could not have survived a return to the Union, even if no ob- 
jection had been made to its new incorporation there. Mr. Davis had 
acknowledged that it was no longer an issue between the ISTorth and South, 
several months before the rescript of Mr. Lincoln had transpired at Nia- 
gara. All thoughtful minds at the South were convinced that the institu- 
tion had been too completely demoralized by the protracted duration of the 
war, and the long presence of liberating armies and negro brigades in the 
South, to be any longer a stable, a profitable, or a safe feature in the 
Southern economy. 

There was, however, a grave constitutional point at issue on this sub- 
ject between the conservative and the Government J)arty, notwithstanding 
that practically the continuance of slavery was no longer in controversy. 
The conservatives denied the right to impose extra-constitutional condi- 
tions on the returning States ; the Government party asserted this right, 
and asserted it wantonly. In that point of view the issue was vital. 
Why abolish what was already doomed to dissolution ? Slavery had 
received its death-blow ; why overleap the Constitution to cut its 
throat ? 

The Radical party did not insist upon thrusting its extreme demands as 
issues into the canvass. They held a convention at Cleveland, as early as 
May 31, and proposed a platform by way of preserving for its leading 
spirits a consistent record. They nominated John C. Fremont for the 
Presidency, and a very weak and rather obscure apostate from the Demo- 
cratic party, John Coclirane, for the Yice-Presidency. All this, however, 
was for little more than mere form's sake. No effort was made to draw 
off voters from the body of the party, which supported the Government 
candidates ; and none were drawn off. In his letter of acceptance. Gen. 
Fremont expressed his preference for supporting the candidate who should 
be nominated at Baltimore, if it could be done without violence to his sense 
of duty and consistency. The platform differed in no material particulars 



PLATFOKM OF THE NORTHEKN EADICALS. 573 

from that of Baltimore, exceptiDg in the addition of a passage in the fifth 
resolution, hereafter to be noticed, and of the two following clauses, viz. : 

" 12. That the question of the reconstruction of the rebellious States belongs to tht 
people through their representatives in Congress, and not to the Executive. 

" 13. That the confiscation of the lands of the rebels, and their distribution among 
the soldiers and actual settlers, is a measure of justice." ' 

It is to be remarked, that even this radical platfonn omits the imposi 
tion of extra-constitutional conditions precedent upon the revolted States 
as requisite to their readmission into the Union even in respect to the 
institution of slavery ; and that its fifth clause relies upon an amendment 
to the Constitution alone, as a means of accomplishing the object ; that 
clause being in these words : 

" 5. That the rebellion has destroyed slavery, and the Constitution should be 
amended to prohibit its re-establishment, and to secure to all men absolute equality 
"before the law.'''' 

The reader will not fail to note how subordinate and obscure a position 
in this platform was assigned to the demand for negro suflFrage and citizen 
sliij), which afterwards was made so prominent a feature in the policy of 
the Radicals. 

Thus, if we look to the written terms in which the issues of parties 
were made up, they were as follows : The Conservatives demanded recon- 
struction on the sole, simple basis of the Constitution as it was. The Gov- 
ernment party demanded a formal abolition of slavery by the revolted 
States as a condition precedent to restoration. The Radicals demanded — 
if we look to their legislation in Congress — the three conditions of the abo- 
lition of slavery by the States, the disfranchisement of the leading rebels, 
and the repudiation of the rebel debt ; and if we look to their Cleveland 
platform, they demanded that the whole question of reconstruction should 
be left to the people of the North, through their representatives in the 
sectional Congress, that the lands of the rebels should be confiscated, and 
that " equality before the law " should be secured to all men. 

On paper, the more ready and natural afliliation of parties would seem 
to have been between the Conservative and the Government parties ; and 
the real antagonism to have been between the Radical party on one side, 
and the Government party and Conservatives, combined, on the other ; 
and this might possibly have been the division, if the Avar had been already 
terminated. For it was apparent, even as early as the summer of 1864, 
that such would really become the dividing line of parties, when the ques- 
tions of reconstruction should come immediately up for practical decision. 
But the election ante-dated reconstruction by more than a year ; and the 



57 4r THE LOST CAUSE. 

contest of parties turned, of course, upon tlie transactions of tlie war, rather 
than upon the conditions and results of a peace still uu conquered. 

The written issues of the canvass were therefore 3ttle considered. 
The debates hung and dwelt upon the usurpations of the Executive, and 
the revolutionary spirit, policy, and purposes of the party in power. These 
being the subject of respective assault and defence, the array of parties 
remained as during the war ; the Conservatives and Democrats on one 
side ; the Radical and Administration Republicans, on the other. The 
prosecution and defence proceeded upon the indictment embodied in the 
fourth resolution of the Democratic platform, " that the administrative 
usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the 
Constitution ; the subversion of the civil by military law in States not in 
insurrection ; the arbitrary military arrests, imprisonment, trial and sen- 
tence of American citizens in States where civil law exists in full force ; 
the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press ; the denial of the 
right of asylum ; the open and avowed disregard of State Eights ; the 
employment of unusual test-oaths, and the interference with and denial 
of the right of the people to bear arms in their defence, are calculated to 
prevent a restoration of the Union, and the perpetuation of a government 
deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed," 

The eloquence of the orators who made appeal against these high 
crimes, was worthy of the cause for which they stood. Some of the ora- 
tions delivered on the inspiring theme equal, if they do not surpass, in 
power and pathos, any that were ever before delivered in vindication of 
human rights and in defence of constitutional liberty. ISTo papers, in the 
political history of this country, exceed, in dignity of style, in power and 
cogency of argument, in thrilling interest of narration, in sternness of 
arraignment, in intensity of patriotic appeal and indignation, some of the 
papers that were put forth by the supporters of Gen. McClellan. But the 
weight of power and patronage proved sufficient to overbalance that of 
patriotism and reason. 

It is not necessary to go further into the details of the canvass ; and 
the reader will already anticipate its conclusion. The election of McClel- 
lan, of which there had been some probability in the midsummer of 1864, 
became impossible, in view of the rapid military successes of the North, 
which never failed to draw new adherents to Mr. Lincoln's Administra- 
tion ; illustrating how little there was of steadfast principle in party 
organizations in the E"orth, and how much of political opposition gave 
way to tlie views of expediency and the persuasions of time-service. The 
" electoral necessity " at "Washington for victories in the field was amply 
fulfilled. The canvass of 1864 concluded in the election of Abraham Liu 
coin by the vote of every Northern State, except Delaware, Kentucky, and 
New Jersey. 



ANALYSIS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL VOTE OF 1864. 575 

Bat in tlie analysis of the popular vote there was yet some encourage- 
ment. It stood twenty-two hundred thousand for Mr, Lincoln, eighteen 
hundred thousand for Gen. McClellan. Although too small for victory, 
the conservative vote was much larger than had been expected by reflect- 
ing men, after the fall of Atlanta, the reverses of Hood, and the success 
of Sherman. Under all the adverse circumstances under which the vote 
was given, it was creditable to the party which made the contest, and en- 
couraging for the cause of constitutional liberty. It was given just after 
decisive reverses had befallen the Confederate cause, in the moments of 
victory and exultation, at a time the most propitious that could have been 
chosen by the war party, and the most unpropitious conceivable for the 
peace party. The election had occurred just at the time when the idea 
prevailed that a popular vote in favour of the war party would fall as a 
finishing blow upon the already exhausted and prostrate Confederacy ; and 
that a vote in favour of the peace party would cheer the South to put forth 
renewed efltbrt in the hope of securing the most favorable terms of peace. 
Tlie adverse vote was not, therefore, a deliberate judgment of a majority 
of the l^orthern people against the principles of constitutional liberty. A 
large number of the men who helped to cast that majority vote were actu- 
ated by motives of expediency, thinking to save the Union first, and leav- 
ing it for a more eligible occasion to vindicate their attachment to consti- 
tutional principles. Thus, the victory of the Constitution was postponed ; 
and its triumph reserved for another and uncertain time. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

AS INTBIGTJE IN EIOHMOND AGAINST GEN. JOHNSTON. — EVIDKNOE OF IT. — GEN. BEAGG's VISIT 
TO ATLANTA. — REMOVAL OF GEN. JOHNSTON FROM COMMAND. — THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA. 
— ENGAGEMENTS OF THE 20tH, 22d, AND 28Tn JULY. — SHERMAN'S DESIGNS ON THE 
MACON ROAD. — UNSUCCESSFUL RAIDS OF STONEMAN AND m'COOK. — HOOd's GREAT 

MISTAKE. — HE SENDS OFF HIS OA VALET TOWARDS CHATTANOOGA. SHERMAN MOVES ON 

THE MACON ROAD. — DEFEAT OP HARDEE AT JONESBORO'. — HOOD EVACUATES ATLANTA, 
AND RETREATS TO LOVEJOT's STATION. — SHEEMAn's OCCUPATION OF ATLANTA. — HIS ORDER 

FOR ITS DEPOPULATION. ATROCIOUS CHARACTER OF THIS MEASURE. THE FALL OF 

ATLANTA A SERIOUS DISASTER FOE THE CONFEDERATES. — VISIT OF PRESIDENT DAVIS TO 
THE MILITARY LINES IN GEORGIA. — HIS SPEECH AT MACON. — HE BETRAYS TO THE ENEMY 
THE NEW MILITARY DESIGN. — HOOd's NEW MOVEMENT TO TENNESSEE. — SHERMAN FOLLOWS 
TO GAYLESVILLE. — HE TURNS BACK AND DETERMINES TO TRAVERSE THE STATE OF 
GEORGIA TO THE SEA. — HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH GRANT. — HOW THE ENTERPRISE WAS 

A PLAIN ONE. — ^NO PEEIL OR GENIUS IN IT. — ERRORS OF THE HOOD-DAVIS STRATEGY. 

hood's TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN. — HE LOSES THE GREAT OPPORTUNITY OF THE CAMPAIGN 
AT SPRING HILL. — SCHOFIELD EFFECTS A RETREAT TO FRANKLIN. — BATTLE OF FRANKLIN. 

HEROIC CONDUCT OF THE CONFEDERATE TROOPS. — REMARKABLE LOSS AMONG THEIR 

GENERAL OFFICERS. — BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. — GEN. GRANT's FEARS THAT HOOD WOULD 
INVADE KENTUCKY. — PROBABLE EFFECT OF SUCH A MOVEMENT. — THE ENEMY's PLAN OF 
BATTLE. — THE SECOND DAY's FIGHT. — ^HOOd's ASSURANCE OF VICTORY. — A CONFEDERATE 
BRIGADE GIVES WAY BEFORE A SKIRMISH LINK OF THE ENEMY. — A DISGRACEFUL PANIC 
AND ROUT. — HOOD ESCAPES ACROSS THE TENNESSEE RIVER. — HIS LOSSES. — THE WHOLE 
SCHEME OF CONFEDERATE DEFENCE TERMINATED WEST OF THE ALLEGHANIE3. 

Gen. Lee had moved from tlie Rapidan to Richmond, with an increase 
of reputation at each stage of the retreat. It is curious that when Gen. 
Johnston moved from the ISTorthern frontier of Georgia to Atlanta, even 
with greater success, he should not have experienced similar tokens of ap- 
probation. The fact was that he was the subject of a deep intrigue in 
Richmond, to displace him from the command of an army, whose affec- 
tions and confidence he had never ceased to enjoy ; and even while he was 
moving in the march from Dalton, his removal from command was secretly 
entertained in Richmond. There is a certain delicate evidence of this, 
which the historian should not spare. While the march referred to was in 



THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA. 577 

progress, a letter -written bj Gen. J. B. Hood to one wlio was supposed to 
liave more than an ordinary concern, an affectionate interest in liis career, 
declared then his confident anticipation of being soon elevated from the 
position of corps commander to the head of the Army of Tennessee. There 
was other evidence of the intrigue in Eiclimond. Gen. Bragg, the " mili- 
tary adviser " of President Davis, visited Johnston in his lines around 
Atlanta ; never apprised him that his visit was of an official nature ; put 
together everything he could to make a case against Johnston, and re- 
turned to Bichmond with the alarming report that he was about to give 
up Atlanta to the enemy ! Of this nonsense Gen. Johnston has written : 
" The proofs that I intended to hold Atlanta are, the fact that under my 
orders the work of strengthening its defences was going on vigorously, 
the communication on the subjact made by me to Gen. Hood, and the fact 
that my family was in the town. That the public workshops were re- 
moved, and no large supplies deposited in the town, as alleged by Gen. 
Bragg, were measures of common prudence, and no more indicated the 
intention to abandon the place than the sending the wagons of an army to 
the rear, on a day of battle, proves a foregone determination to abandon 
the field." 

But the Presidential fiat was to go forth in the face of all facts. On 
the night of the 17th July it was known in the Army of Tennessee, that a 
despatch had been received from Richmond, removing Johnston from com- 
mand, and appointing in his place Gen. J. B. Hood. The news struck a 
chill in the army, such as no act or menace of tlie enemy had ever done. 
To Sherman it was the occasion of new spirit. When he heard that Hood 
was to be his future antagonist, he jumped to his feet, made a significant 
motion around his forefinger, and exclaimed : " I know that follow." 

Gen. J. B. Hood had been appointed by President Davis as " a fighting 
General," and was prompt to vindicate the cheap reputation that had pro- 
cured for him such a command. "With some reinforcements from the 
Southwest and levies of Georgia militia, Gen. Hood had now under his 
command an effective force of forty-one thousand infantry and artillery, 
and ten thousand cavalry. With reference to other Confederate forces in 
the field, his army was a large one, although it gave him but little margin 
for fanciful attacks and useless sacrifice of life. 



THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA. 

As Sherman approached Atlanta, two of his corps had swung around 

upon the Augusta road, destroying this line of communication, while 

Thomas took his command across Peach Tree Creek, directly in front of 

the Confederate entrenchments. While the enemy's right on the creek 

37 



578 THE LOST CAUSE. 

was iu marcliing column, Hood, in the afternoon of the 20th July, directed 
an attack upon ir, designing to take advantage of a gap between two of 
its divisions. The attack was led by Walker's and Bates' divisions of 
Hardee's corps ; and the massed troops, in admirable order, burst through 
tlie gap in the enemy's lines, and for a time appeared about to destroy his 
forces on the right. But a double fire was brought to bear upon their lines 
alono the deep hollow they had penetrated ; and the attack was drawn off 
in good order, but after a half hour of deadly work, in which the killed 
and wounded were counted by thousands. The loss of the enemy was 
about two thousand ; that of the Confederates probably twice as large, as 
they were the assaulting party, and terribly exposed on the line of attack. 

'Next day, McPherson moved forward, and established a line east and 
south of Atlanta, and within tliree miles of the town. His command 
stretched beyond the Atlanta and Augusta Railroad, which he had torn 
up. Hood now hastily swimg around Hardee's corps, followed by the 
others, and brought the bulk of his army against McPherson. Hardee 
moved against the enemy's extreme left, drove him from his woi-ks, and 
captured sixteen pieces of artillery. Gen. McPherson was shot dead as he 
rode along the line. Meanwhile, Cheatham attacked the enemy's centre 
with a portion of his command, and took six pieces of artillery. Affairs 
looked gloomy for the enemy ; he had been repulsed at several points, he 
had lost much artillery, and the stream of bleeding men going to the rear 
told how severely he suffered in the conflict. But about this time the 
enemy succeeded in concentrating his artillery, and Gen. Sherman sent 
word to Logan, who had succeeded McPherson, to mass his troops in the 
centre and charge. Exhausted, wasted, and bleeding, the Confederate 
columns gave way, abandoning most of the artillery they had captured in 
the early part of the day. The attack of the 22d was like that of the 
20th — one of the most reckless, massive, and headlong charges of the war, 
where immense prices were paid for momentary successes, and the terrible 
recoil of numbers gave a lesson to the temerity of the Confederate com- 
mander. 

Hood's attempt on the Federal left being frustrated, he fell back to his 
inner line of works. The intentions of Sherman appear now to have been 
to swing his army to Hood's extreme right, threatening the Macon road, 
and having in co-operation a great cavalry raid upon his rear. Stoneman 
was sent with five thousand cavalry, and McCook with fom' thousand men, 
to meet on the Macon road near Lovejoy's Station, where they were to de- 
stroy the rail, and also to attack and drive Wheeler's command. Stone- 
man requested permission to be allowed to proceed to Macon to release tho 
Federal prisoners confined there. Sherman left this at liis own discretion, 
m case he felt he was able to do so after the defeat of Wheeler's cavalry. 
But Stoneman did not fulfil the conditions He got down in front of 



OPERATIONS AROUND ATLANTA. 579 

Macon, -svitliout going to Lovejoy's, and, in attempting to reti-eat, was 
hemmed in by Iverson, and was himself captnred, together with one thon- 
Band of his men and two guns. McCook returned after losing five liundrcd 
men as prisoners. The cavalry raid was a decided failure, or as Slierman 
mildly expressed it, " not deemed a success." 

On the 28th July Hood made a partial attack along the Lickskillet 
road, which he had occcupied with Stewart's and Lee's corps. Tlie con- 
flict was desultory and without result on either side. After five hours of 
action, Hood retired with a loss of about fifteen hundred killed and 
wounded. 

We have already noticed that Sherman did not have force enough to 
invest Atlanta completely. This was the great point in Johnston's calcu- 
lations, when they were upset at Richmond ; for Sherman, reduced to 
strategy, would have found his master in the cool and dexterous Johnston, 
whereas in Hood he had plainly his inferiour to deal with — a commander 
who had indeed abundant courage, but a scant brain with which to bal- 
ance it. Sherman's army was not large enough to encircle Atlanta com- 
pletely, without making his lines too thin and assailable. He never con- 
templated an assault upon its strong works. It was his great object to get 
possession of the Macon road, and thus sever Atlanta entirely from its sup- 
plies. It was not sufficient to cut the road by raids ; it must be kept 
broken, and to accomplish this it was clearly necessary to plant a sufficient 
force south of Atlanta. 

While Sherman meditated such a movement, Hood made the very mis- 
take that would secure and facilitate it, and thrust into the hands of his 
adversary the opportunity he had waited for. He sent off his entire cav- 
alry towards Chattanooga to raid on the enemy's line of communication — 
a most absurd excursion, since Sherman had enough provisions accumu- 
lated this side of that place to last him until he could restore his communi- 
cations, and had also formed a second base at Allatoona. 

Instantly, the Federal cavalry M-as on the Macon road. With his 
flanks easily protected, Sherman followed quickly with his main army. 
On the 31st August, Howard, on the right, had reached Jonesboro', on the 
Macon road, twenty miles southeast of Atlanta; Thomas, in the centre, 
was at Couch's ; and Schofield, on the left, was near Rough-and-Ready, 
Btill closer to Atlanta. 

Hood had no alternative now but to make a battle on or near the line 
of the Macon road, and there settle the fate of Atlanta. He might have 
moved out of the city on the north, and have overwhelmed what of Sher 
man's army — the Twentieth corps — was left there ; but he would then 
have been in a country destitute of supplies. He determined to make the 
battle near Jonesboro', and the corps of Lee and Hardee were moved out 
to attempt to dislodge the enemy frotn the entrenched position he held 



680 THE LOST CAUSE. 

across Flint River The attack failed with tlie loss of more than two thou- 
sand men. On the evening of tlie 1st September, the enemy's colamns 
converged upon Jonesboro', and Hardee's corps, finding itself about to be 
flanked and overwhelmed, withdrew during the night, after having been 
cut up bv two severe engagements, and with the loss of eight guns. 

That night, finding his line of supply cut off, and the sum of his die as- 
ters complete, Hood determined to abandon Altanta. He blew up his 
magazines, destroyed all his supplies that he could not remove, consisting 
of seven locomotives and eighty-one cars loaded with ammunition, and left 
the place by the turnpike roads. He moved swiftly across the country 
towards Macon. The next morning Sherman moved south to catch the 
retreating army, but at Lovejoy's, two miles beyond Jonesboro', he. found 
Hood strongly entrenched, and, abandoning the pursuit, returned to 
Atlanta. 

Sherman announced : " Atlanta is ours, and fairly won." His army 
entered the city on the morning of the 2d September, and the successful 
commander rode through the streets to his headquarters without parade or 
ostentation. He declared that his army, wearied by an arduous campaign, 
needed rest, and that he proposed to give it an interval of repose within 
the defences of Atlanta. But the period of military inaction was to be 
employed in launching measures of the most extraordinary cruelty against 
the non-combatant people of Atlanta. Gen. Sherman was the author of 
the sentiment, " War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it," which was 
caught up in the ^Northern newspapers as a bit of very sententious and ele- 
gant philosophy, when, in fact, denying, as it did, that war had any law 
of order or amelioration, it was a mere plagiarism from the bloody and 
detestable code of the savage. This extraordinary doctrine Sherman at 
once proceeded to put in practice by depopulating Atlanta, and driving 
from their homes thousands of helpless women and children. It was the 
most cruel and savage act of the war. Butler, the tyrant of New Orleans, 
had only banislied registered enemies. Sherman issued a sweeping edict, 
covering all the inhabitants of a city, and driving them from their homes 
to wander as strangers, outcasts and exiles, and to subsist on charity. 
Gen. Hood, while he received the exiles within his lines, took occasion to 
protest, writing to Gen. Sherman himself of the measure his sinister mind 
had devised : " It transcends in studied and ingenious cruelty all acts eve? 
before brought to my attention in the dark history of war." But all pro- 
tests were unavailing. In vain the Mayor of Atlanta had pointed out to 
Gen. Sherman that the country south of the city was crowded already with 
refugees, and without houses to accommodate the people, and that many had 
no other shelter but what they might find in churches, and out-buildings ; 
that among the exiles were many poor women in an advanced state of 
pregnancy ; that the consequences would be woe, horrour, and suffering, 



PKE8IDENT DAVIs' VISIT TO GEORGIA. 581 

wliich coiikl not be described by \vords. Sherman was inexorable. He 
affected the belief that Atlanta might again be rendered formidable in the 
hands of the Confederates, and resolved, in his own words, " to wipe it 
out." The old and decrepit were hunted from their homes ; they were 
packed into railroad cars ; tottering old age and helpless youth were 
crowded together ; wagons were filled with wrecks of household goods ; 
and tliO trains having deposited their medley freigh-t at Rough-and-Ready, 
the exiles were then left to shift for themselves. 

The fall of Atlanta was a terrible blow to the Southern Confederacy ; 
a reanimation of the North ; the death of " the peace party " there ; the 
date of a new hope of the enemy and of a new prospect of subjugation. 
" On that day," said the Eichmond Examiner, " McClellan's nomination 
fell still-born, and an heir was born to the Abolition dynasty. On that 
day, peace waved those ' white wings,' and fled to tlie ends of the morn- 
ing. On that day, calculations of the war's duration ceased to be the 
amusements even of the idle." President Davis had declared, when he 
removed Johnston, that " Atlanta mnst be held at all hazards." It was 
the most important manufjicturing centre in the Confederacy ; it was the 
key to the network of railroads extending to all portions of the Gulf 
States ; it was " the Gate City " from the north and west to the southeast ; 
it was an important depot of supplies, and commanded the richest granaries 
of the South. Such was the prize of the enemy. 

The catastrophe moved President Davis in Richmond, and mortified 
the vanity that had so recently proclaimed the security of Atlanta under 
the command of Hood. He determined to visit Hood's new lines, to plan 
with him a new campaign, to compensate for the loss of Atlanta, and to 
take every possible occasion to raise the hopes and confidence of the peo- 
ple. It is remarkable that the visits of the Confederate President to the 
armies were always the occasions of some far-fetched aiid empirical plan 
of operations, and were always accompanied with vapours and boasts that 
unduly exalted the public mind. Mr. Davis never spoke of military mat- 
ters without a certain ludicrous boastfulness, which he maintained to the 
last event of the war. It was not swagger or affectation ; it was the sin- 
cere vagary of a mind intoxicated with conceit when occupied with a sub- 
ject where it imagined it found its forte, but whore in fact it had least 
aptitude. Mr. Davis, as a military commander or adviser, was weak, fan- 
ciful, to excess, and much too vain to keep his own counsels. As he 
travelled towards Hood's lines, he made excited speeches in South Caro- 
lina and Georgia. At Macon he declared that Atlanta would be recov- 
ered ; that Sherman would be brought to grief; and that this Federa. 
commmander " would meet the fate that befell Napoleon in the retreat 
from Moscow." These swollen assertions, so out of character, were open 
advertisements to the enemy of a new plan of operations. It appears 



682 THE LOST CAUSE. 

that the unfortunate vanity of President Davis completely betrayed him. 
Referring to this period, Gen. Grant writes : " During this time Jefferson 
Davis made a speech in Macon, Georgia, which was reported in the papers 
of the South, and soon became known to the whole country, disclosing the 
plans of the enemy, thus enahling Gen. Sherman to fully meet them. He 
exhibited the weakness of supposing that an army that had been beaten 
and fearfully decimated in a vain attempt at the defensive could buccess- 
fully undertake the ofiensive against the army that had so often de- 
feated it." 

The new offensive movement of Hood, advised by President Davis, 
was soon known to the country. Not satisfied with the revelation at 
Macon, President Davis addressed the army, and more plainly announced 
the direction of the new campaign. Turning to CJieatham's division of 
Tennesseeans, he said : " Be of good cheer, for within a short while your 
faces will be turned homeward, and your feet pressing Tennessee soil." 

On the 2-ith September, Hood commenced the new movement to pass 
to Sherman's rear and to get on his line of communications as far as Ten- 
nessee. The first step was to transfer his army, by a flank movement, 
from Lovejoy's Station on the IMacon Railroad, to near Newman on the 
West Point road. The significance of this might have escaped the enemy, 
but for the incautious language of President Davis at Macon, which at 
once gave rise to the supposition that this movement was preliminary to 
one more extensive. Sherman was instantly on the alert, sending his 
spare forces, wagons, and guns, to the rear, under Gen. Thomas, and, at 
the same time, sending Schofield, Newton, and Corse to take up different 
points in the rear of Atlanta. 

On the 27th, Hood moved towards the Chattahoochee. On the 1st 
October, the enemy made a reconnoissance towards Newman, and discov- 
ered that Hood had crossed the Chattahoochee River on the 29th and 30th 
of September. Sherman immediately followed. 

On the 5th October, when Hood's advance assaulted Allatoona, Sher- 
man was on Kenesaw Mountain, signalling to the garrison at Allatoona, 
over the heads of the Confederates, to hold out until he relieved them. 
Hood moved westward, and, crossing the Etowah and Oostananla Rivers 
by forced marches, attacked Dalton on the 12th, which was surrendered. 
Passing through the gap of Pigeon Mountain, he entered Lafayette on the 
]5th. From this place he suddenly moved south to Gadsden, Alabama, 
where he rejoined his trains, to make his fatal march towards Nashville. 

Sherman waited some time at Gaylesville, until he became fully as- 
sured of the direction taken by Hood ; and then abruptly prepared to 
abandon the pursuit, return to Atlanta, and mobilize his army for a march 
across the broad State of Georgia to the sea. His calculation was a plain 
and precise one. Gen. Thomas, at Nashville, could collect troops from the 



FOLLY OF THE DAVIS-HOOD CASIPAIGN. 583 

u;'liole Department of the Mississippi ; Rosecrans was able to send liim 
reinforcements from Missouri ; Sherman detached two corps — the Fourth 
and Twenty-third — to move, by the way of Chattanooga, to the relief of 
Tliomas ; and there was little doubt that with this force Thomas could ho d 
the line of the Tennessee, or if Hood forced it, would be able to concen- 
trate and give a good battle. Sherman was left in command of four army 
coi-ps, and two divisions of superb cavalry — a force of about sixty-thou- 
Band men. "When Hood wandered off in the direction of Florence, Sherman 
was left free to complete his arrangements, and there was nothing to inter- 
fere with his grand projected march to the sea. In October, Gen. Grant, who 
was watching closely the development of the wretched Davis-Hood device 
to find some compensation for the loss of Atlanta, telegraphed Sherman : 
" If you were to cut loose, I do not believe you would meet Hood's army, 
but would be bushwhacked by all the old men, little boys, and such rail- 
road guards as are still left at home." AVitli nothing, of course, to fear 
from such an opposition, Sherman telegraphed his determination " to 
make a wreck of the road, and of the country from Chattanooga to Atlanta, 
including the latter city ; send back all his wounded and worthless, and with 
his elfective army, move through Georgia, smashing things, to the sea." 

The march would, indeed, have been a perilous enterprise, if there had 
been any considerable force in Sherman's front, or on his flanks. As it 
was, nothing opposed his march to the sea, and he had simply to pass 
through the gate-ways which the stupidity of the Davis-Hood campaign 
had left open. It is amusing to the student of history to have such a 
plain march entitled a grand exploit, when it was only a question of sc 
many miles motion a day. Sherman knew very well that there was noth- 
ing to oppose him ; he knew that the Confederacy had been compelled to 
throw all its lighting power on its frontiers, for Grant had told him " it 
was but an egg-shell ; " he knew that the conscription had exhausted the 
interiour ; he knew that the country he would traverse was peopled 
with non-combatants, women, and children ; he knew that this country 
abounded with supplies, which the difficulties of transportation had with- 
held from Eichmond. He simply proposed to take plain advantage of 
these circumstances, and march to the sea-board. There was no genius in 
this ; no daring ; it was merely looking the situation in the face. It is 
said that had Sherman failed he \vould have been put down as one of the 
e^^eatest charlatans of the age. But there was no chance of failure when 
there was nothing to dispute the march. If, indeed, he had attempted the 
movement with a Confederate army in his front or on his flank, it is highly 
probable that the adventure would have taken rank with his movement 
in 18G2 on Vicksburg, the greatest fiasco of the war, and his experiment 
with " the strategic triangle " in 1863, a piece of charlatanism and of dis- 
ordered execution that should have decided his reputation. 



584 THE LOST CAUSE. 

It had been the original design of the enemy to hold Atlanta, and hy 
gettino- through to the west, with a garrison left on the southern railroada 
leadino- east and. west through Georgia, to effectually sever the east from 
the west. In other words it was proposed in the great campaign of 1864 
to rei)eat the experiment of bisection of the Confederacy, first accomplished 
when the enemy gained possession of the Mississippi River. It was calcu- 
lated of course to tight from Atlanta to the sea, and that the second stroke 
of bisection would be accomplished by cutting through a hostile array. In 
originating with Hood the movement north of Atlanta, President Davis 
simply saved the enemy all the trouble he had contemplated, cleared the 
way of opposition and opened a plain and unencumbered way to his ori- 
ginal design, with an invitation to execute it w^ithout fear and at leisure. 

We must leave here the story of Sherman's march to follow the erratic 
campaign of Hood. AVhen the latter was ready to leave Florence, Sher- 
man was far on his way on his march towards Savannah ; and the country 
beheld with amazement the singular spectacle of two antagonistic armies, 
both at once acting on the offensive, day after day marching away from 
each other, and moving diametrically apart. To appreciate what insanity 
must have inspired such a campaign on the Confederate side, we may 
remark the utter want of compensation in the two movements. Even 
throwing out of consideration the great fact that Hood's movement to the 
north uncovered Georgia and left her undefended to the sea, while itself 
encountered a second army of the enemy, yet even if Hood was successful, 
an invasion of Northern territory would be no possible equivalent for that 
of the South, where the ravage and loss of material resources might be 
vital ; and even in the least circumstance, the season of the year, the Con- 
federate troops, badly clothed and shod, were put at the disadvantage of 
marching northward, while the enemy sought the genial clime of a South- 
ern latitude. 



HOOD 3 TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN. 

On the 20th Kovember, Gen. Hood commenced to move his army from 
Northern Alabama to Tennessee. He pushed forward as if to cut off 
Schofield's retreat from Pulaski ; this Federal commander having taken 
position there, with the greater part of two army corps, and an aggregation 
of fort-garrisons ft'om the surrounding country, while Thomas remained at 
Nashville. Schofield fearing that his position was about to be flanked, 
•abandoned Pulaski, and attempted by a forced march to reach Columbia. 

The want of a good map of the country, and the deep mud through 
which the army marched, prevented Hood overtaking the enemy before 
he reached Columbia ; but on the evening of the 27th of November tho 



hood's failure at speing hill. 585 

Confederate army was placed in position in front of his "works at that place. 
During the night, however, the enemy evacuated the town, taking position 
on the opposite side of the river, about a mile and a half from the town, 
which was considered quite strong in front. Late in the evening of the 
2Sth November, Gen. Forrest, with most of his command, crossed Duck 
River, a few miles above Columbia, and Hood followed early on the 
morning of the 20th, with Stewart's and Cheatham's corps, and Johnson's 
division of Lee's corps, leaving the other divisions of Lee's corps in the 
enemy's front at Columbia. The troops moved in light marching order, the 
object being to turn the enemy's flank by marching rapidly on roads 
parallel to the Columbia and Franklin pike, at or near Spring Hill, and to 
cut off that portion of the enemy at or near Columbia. 

The enemy, discovering the intentions of the Confederates, began to re- 
treat on the pike towards Spring Hill. About 4 r. m.. Hood's infantry 
forces, Cheatham in the advance, commenced to come in contact with the 
enemy, about two miles from Spring Hill, through which place the Colum- 
bia and Franklin pike runs. The enemy was at this time moving rapidly 
along the pike, with some of his troops on the flank of his column to pro- 
tect it. Cheatham was ordered to attack the enemy at once, vigorously, 
and get possession of this pike. He made only a feeble and partial attack, 
failing to reach the j)oint indicated. The great object of Gen. Hood was 
to possess himself of the road to Franklin, and thus cut off the enemy's 
retreat. Though owing to delays the signal opportunity to do this had 
passed at daylight, there was yet a chance of dealing the enemy a heavy 
blow. Stewart's corps and Johnson's division were arriving upon the field 
to support the attack. Stewart was ordered to move his corps bej'ond 
Cheatliam's, and place it across the road beyond Spring Hill. He did not 
succeed in getting the position he desired, owing to some misunderstand- 
ing of orders, and, night falling, he went into bivouac. About midnight, 
ascertaining that the enemy was moving in great confusion — artillery 
wagons and troops intermixed — Gen, Hood sent instructions to Cheatham 
to advance a heavy line of skirmishers against him, and still further im- 
pede and confuse his march. This was not accomplished. The enemy 
continued to move along the road in hurry and confusion, within hearing, 
nearly all the night. Thus was lost a great opportunity of striking the 
enemy, and his line of retreat secured in the face of the Confederates 
without a battle. 

Much of the disaster that was now to ensue in his campaign Gen. 
Hood attributed to the fact that " some of his Generals had failed him at 
Spring Hill." Tiiere was nothing left now but to pursue the enemy. At 
daylight Hood's army followed as fast as possible towards Frank;^n, 
Stewart in the advance, Cheatham following, and Lee with the trains, 
moving from Columbia on the same road. The Confederates pursued the 



586 THE LOST CAUSE. 

enemy rapidly, and compelled liiin to burn a number of his wagons. lie 
made a feint as if to give battle on the hills abont four miles south of 
Franklin, but as soon as Hood's forces began to deploy for the attack, and 
to flank him on his left, he retired slowly to Franklin. Gen. Ilood had 
learned from despatches captured at Spring Hill, from Thomas to 
Scliofield, that the latter was instructed to hold that place till the position 
at Franklin could be made secure, indicating the intention of Thomas to 
hold Franklin and his strong works at Murfreesboro'. Thus Hood knew 
that it was all-important to attack Schofield before he could make himself 
strong, and that if he should escape at Franklin, he would gain his works 
about Nashville. The nature of the position was such as to render it inex- 
pedient to attempt any further flank movement, and he therefore deter- 
mined toattack the enemy in front, and without delay. 



BATTLE OF FKANKLIN. 

On the 30tli ISTovember Stewart's corps was placed in position on the 
right, Cheatham's on the left, and the cavalry on either flank, the main 
body on the right under Forrest. Johnson's division of Lee's corps also 
became engaged on the left during the action. The line advanced at 
4: p. M., with orders to drive the enemy, at the point of the bayonet, 
into or across the Big Harpeth Eiver, while Gen. Forrest, if successful, 
was to cross the river and attack and destroy his trains and broken col- 
umns. The troops moved forward most gallantly to the attack. They 
.arried the enemy's line of hastily-constructed works handsomely. They 
then advanced against his interiour line, and succeeded in carrying it also, 
in some places. Here the engagement was of the liercest possible charac- 
ter. The Confederates came on with a desperation and disregard of death, 
such as had been shown on few battle-fields of the war. A Northern 
writer says : " More heroic valour was never exhibited by any troops than 
was shown here by the rebels." The devoted troops were mowed down by 
grape and canister. Many of them were killed entirely inside of the works. 
The brave men captured, were taken inside the enemy's works on the edge 
of the town. The struggle lasted till near midnight, when the enemy 
abandoned his works and crossed the river, leaving his dead and wounded 

It is remarkable that in this hard-fought battle the Confederates used 
no artillery whatever ; Gen. Hood's explanation being that he was re- 
strained from using that terrible arm " on account of the women and chil- 
dren remaining in the town." Yictory had been purchased at the price 
of a terrible slaughter. Hood's total loss in killed, wounded, and prison- 
ers was 4,500. Among the killed was Maj.-Gen. P. E. Cleburne, Brig.- 
Gens. John Adams, Strahl and Granbury ; while Maj.-Gen. Brown, Brig.- 



BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. 587 

Gens. Carter, Manigault, Quarles, Cockrell, and Scott were wounded, and 
Brig.-Gen. Gordon captured. 



BATfLE OF NASHVILLE. 

The next morning Gen. Hood advanced upon Xashville, where Scho. 
field had retreated, and where Thomas Lay with his main force. He laid 
siege to the town on the 2d December, closely investing it for a fortnight. 
The opinion long prevailed in the Confederacy that in tliis pause and the 
operations of siege. Hood made the cardinal mistake of his campaign ; and 
that if he had taken another course', and struck boldly across the Cumber- 
land, and settled himself in the enemy's communications, he would have 
forced Thomas to evacuate Nashville, and fall back towards Kentucky. 
This was the great fear of Gen. Grant. That high Federal officer, in his 
report of the operations of 1864, has written : " Before the battle of E'ash- 
ville I grew very impatient over, as it appeared to me, the unnecessary 
delay. This impatience was increased upon learning that the enemy had 
sent a force of cavalry across the Cumberland into Kentucky. 1 feared 
Hood would cross his whole army and give us great trouble here. After 
urging upon Gen. Thomas the necessity of immediately assuming the offen- 
sive, I started west to superintend matters there in person. Reaching 
Washington city, I received Gen, Thomas's despatch announcing his attack 
upon the enemy, and the result as far as the battle had progressed. I was 
delighted. All fears and apprehensions were dispelled." 

On the night of the 14th December, Thomas decided upon a plan of 
battle, which was to make a feint on Hood's right flank, while he massed 
his main force to crush in Hood's left, which rested on the Cumberland, 
and where the cover of the Federal gunboats might be made available. 
The I runt of the action did not fall until evening, when the enemy drove 
in the Confederate infantry outposts on the left flank. Hood, however, 
quickly ordered up troops from his right to stay the reversed tide of bat- 
tle ; and the remainder of the day was occupied by the enemy in sweeping 
the Confederate entrenchments with artillery fire, while here and there his 
infantry attempted, in vain, to find a weak spot in their lines. 

Under cover of the night Hood re-formed his line, and in the morning 
was found in position along the Overton Hills, some two miles or so to tlie 
rear of his original line. The new position was a strong one, running along 
the wooded crests of closely-connecting hills ; while the two keys to it were 
the Granny "White and Franklin pikes, leading to Franklin, Columbia, Pu« 
laski, and so down the country to the Tennessee River. Thomas' over- 
whelming numbers enabled him to throw heavy columns against Hood's 
left and centre. But every attack of the enemy was repulsed. It was 



688 THE LOST CAUSE. 

four o'clock.in the evening, and the day was thought to be decided for the 
Confederates, when there occurred one of the most extraordinary incidents 
of the war. It is said that Gen. Hood was about to publish a victory 
along his line, when Finney's Florida brigade in Bates' division, which 
was to the left of the Confederate centre, gave way before the skirmish 
line of the enemy ! Instantly Bates' whole division took the panic, and 
broke in disorder. The moment a small breach was thus made in the 
Confederate lines, the whole of two corps unaccountably and instantly fled 
from their ditches, almost without firing a gun. It was a disgraceful 
panic ; muskets were abandoned where they rested betw^een the logs of the 
breastworks ; and everything that could impede flight was thrown away as 
the fugitives passed down the Granny White and Franklin pikes, or fled 
wildly from the battle-field. Such an instance of sudden, unlooked-for, 
wild retreat, the abandonment of a victory almost won, could only have 
happened in an army where thorough demoralization, the consequence of 
long, heavy, weary work, and of tremendous efibrts without result — in 
short, the reaction of great endeavours where success is not decided, al- 
ready lurked in the minds of troops, and was likely to be developed at any 
time by the slightest and most unimportant circumstance. 

Fifty pieces of artillery and nearly all of Hood's ordnance wagons w^ere 
left to the enemy. His loss in killed and wounded was disgracefully small ; 
and it was only through want of vigour in Thomas' pursuit that Hood's 
shattered and demoralized army effected its retreat. Forrest's command, 
and Walthal, with seven picked brigades, covered the retreat. The situa- 
tion on the Tennessee Kiver was desperate ; Hood had no pontoon train, 
and if he had been pressed, would have been compelled to surrender ; 
but as it was, Thomas' great error in resting upon his victory at IS'ash- 
ville enabled a defeated Confederate army to construct bridges of timber 
over the Tennessee River, while the Federal gunboats in the stream were 
actually kept at bay by batteries of 32-pounders. 

Hood succeeded in escaping across the Tennessee, but only with a rem- 
nant of the brilliant force he had conducted across the river a few weeks 
before, having lost from various causes more than ten thousand men, half 
of hifl Generals, and nearly all of his artillery. Such was the disastrous 
issue of the Tennessee campaign, which put out of existence, as it were, 
the splendid army that Johnston had given up at Atlanta, and terminated 
forever the whole scheme of Confederate defence west of the Alleghanies. 



CHAPTER XXXYI. 

CAMPAIGN OF 1864 IN THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA.— ITS GENERAL DESIGN AS A 8TEATEGI0 

AUXILIARY TO RICHMOND. THE NEW COMMAND OF THE ENEMY IN THE VALLEY. GEN. 

SHERIDAN AND HIS FORCES. — VIEWS OF GEN. LEK ABOUT THE RELIEF OF RICHMOND. — UK 
DETACHES A FOBOB UNDER GEN. ANDERSON TO CO-OPERATE "WITH EARLY, AND " STIR UP " 
THE ENEMY ACROSS THE POTOMAC. — ANDERSON AND FITZHUGH LEE FIND EARLY FALL- 
ING BACK AND ASKING FOR REINFORCEMENTS. — THE ENEMY DECLINES A BATTLE AND 
EETREATS TO HARPEr's FERRY. — STRENGTH AND DISPOSITION OF THE CONFEDERATE 
FORCES ABOUT WINCHESTER. — NEARLY A MONTH CONSUMED IN MARCHING AND COUNTER- 
MARCHING. GEN. LEE ORDERS THE RETURN OF GEN. ANDERSON WITH KERSHAW's DIVI- 
SION. — BATTLE OF WINCHESTER. — GEN. GRANT ADVISES SHERIDAN TO " GO IN." — EARLy's 
SMALL FORCE. — .HOW IT CAME TO BE SCATTERED OVER TWENTY-TWO MILES. — RAMSEUR's 
DIVISION SUSTAINS THE ATTACK UNTIL THE OTHER CONFEDERATE FORCES COME UP. — 
GORDON DRIVES THE ENEMY. — HAPPY STROKE OF A CONFEDERATE BATTERY. — THE ENE- 

MY's infantry routed. HIS CAVALRY GET ON THE CONFEDERATE LEFT AND REAR AND 

CHANGE THE DAY. RETREAT OF THE CONFEDERATES. BATTLE OF FISHEr's HILL. HOW 

GEN. EARLY's position WAS DEFECTIVE HERE. — HE IS FLANKED ON THE LEFT, AND RE- 
TREATS UP THE VALLEY. — THE ENEMY PURSUES TO STAUNTON. — SHERIDAN's BARBAROUS 
ORDER TO DEVASTATE THE VALLEY. — HE BURNS " TWO THOUSAND BARNS."— REFLECTIONS 
UPON THIS OUTRAGE. — BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. — EARLY, REINFORCED, RESUMES THE 
CAMPAIGN, AND DETERMINES TO MAKE A SURPRISE. — A FLANKING COLUMN OF CONFED- 
ERATES CROSSES THE NORTH FORK OF THE SHENANDOAH, — TWO CORPS OF THE ENEMY 
BROKEN AND PUT TO ROUT. — THE ENEMY PURSUED THROUGH MIDDLETOWN. — HOW THE 
VIGOUR OF PURSUIT WAS LOST. — THE FOOLISH NEWSPAPER STORY ABOUT GEN. SHERIDAn's 
SUDDEN APPEARANCE ON THE FIELD. — THE CONFEDERATES DEMORALIZED BY PILLAGE. — 
THE ENEMY MAKES A COUNTER- CHARGE, AND SWEEPS EVERYTHING BEFORE HIM. — GEN. 
EARLY's attempt TO PUT THE CENSURE OF THE DISASTER UPON HIS MEN. — HOW FAR HB 
■WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. — TRUE EXPLANATION OF THE PAUSE FN HIS VICTORY. — REMOVAL 
OF GEN. EARLY FROM COMMAND. — GEN. LEe's GENEROUS LETTER TO HIM. — HOW THE 
KEWSPAPERS BERATED HIM.— THE CHARGE OF HABITUAL INTOXICATION. — REVIEW OF THB 
VALLEY CAMPAIGN. — ITS EFFECT DECISIVE UPON RICHMOND. — REMARK OF A CONFEDERATE 
GENERAL. — SOME VIEWS OF THE MANAGEMENT AND DISPOSITION OF THE CONFEDERATE 
CAVALRY FORCES IN VIRGINIA. 

To Hood's unbroken series of disasters there was a companion-piece in 
another part of the Confederacj : a small theatre of the war, but an im- 
portant and a conspicuous one, associated with many heroic memories of 



590 THE LOST CAUSE. 

the Confederacy. Tliis other chapter of misfortune waS' Early's campaign 
in the Valley of Yirgiuia. In this campaign a Confederate General never 
won a victory ; lost all of his artillery, and brought an army to practical 
annihilation. But, although like Hood's misadventure m these particu- 
lars, the campaign in the Valley is to be judged by another standaid; 
while marked by some undoubted misconduct, it had much to excuse its 
impotent conclusion, and it was, in some respects, w'hat its commander 
designated it — " a forlorn hope." 

We have already pointed out the first object of Early's operations in 
the Valley as substantially the same which took Stonewall Jackson there 
in 1862 — the diversion of a portion of the Federal forces from the great 
arena of combat in the lowlands. It was also important to save, as far as 
possible, the harvests of the Shenandoah and to protect the Gordonsville 
road ; but the campaign -was mainly a strategic auxiliary to the operations 
around Petersburg and Richmond. 

In consequence of the threatening attitude of Early, who since he had 
moved across the Potomac, had been able to send a raiding party into 
Pennsylvania, which on the 30tli July burned Chambersbnrg, Gen. Grant 
had been nnable to return the Sixth and ^Nineteenth corps to the Army of 
the Potomac. On the contrary, he saw the necessity of an enlarged cam- 
paign to protect the frontiers of Maryland and Pennsylvania. What was 
called the Middle Department, and the Departments of West Virginia, 
Washington, and Susquehanna, were constituted into one under the com- 
mand of Gen. Sheridan. The new commander was a man of a coarse, 
active nature, excessive animal spirits, and an intensely combative temper- 
ament — an antagonist not to be despised, although he had shown no dis- 
tinct military genius, and w^as only remarkable in the war for the execu 
tion of single tasks indicated to him by his superiours. He had an amount 
of force which was all he could have asked for as a condition of success. 
In addition to the column of active operation under his command, consist- 
ino- of the Sixth and Nineteenth corps, and the infantry and cavalry of 
West Virginia under Crook and Averill, there were assigned to him two 
divisions of cavalry from the Army of the Potomac under Torbert and 
Wilson. His effective infantry strength was about thirty-five thousand 
muskets ; and his great superiority in cavalry -was very advantageous to 
him, as the country was very open and admirably adapted to the opera- 
tions of this arm. /(T't^'C^f 

Gen. Lee had long been persuaded that He was too weak to attack the 
enemy's works in his front at Petersburg. Information derived from 
trusty scouts and from reconnoissances pushed to the rear of the enemy's 
flanks, proved the impracticability of turning them. The only resource 
was strategy, and that obviously the renewal of the Valley campaign, to 
develop, if possible, a crisis in the situation about Petersburg and Richmond, 



GEN. lee's plan TO RELIEVE KICHMOND. 591 

On tlie 4tli August, 1804, an order was issued from the headquarters 
of Lee's army, dircting the march of Kershaw's division of Longstreet's 
corps, and Fitzhugh Lee's division of cavalry to Culpepper Court-house. 
Licut.-Gen. R. II. Anderson was then commanding the troops of Gen. 
Longstreet (the latter being still incapacitated from duty by the wound 
received in the battles of the Wilderness), and was assigned to command 
the expedition. The force ordered for it was withdrawn from Grant's 
front on the south side of the James ; Fitzhugh Lee's division being on the 
Confederate right in the vicinity of Keam's Station on the "Weldon 
Railroad. 

Gen. Lee's intentions, as explained to his officers, were to send the 
troops of Kershaw and Fitzhugh Lee to co-operate with Early in move- 
ments on the Maryland border, or even in the State itself. He wanted the 
enemy in "Washington and vicinity " stirred up," as much as possible, and 
the impression produced that our force was a large one. Upon reaching 
Culpepper Court-IIouse, Fitzhugh Lee was to go down towards Alexan- 
dria and make a demonstration in that vicinity, and if his information as 
to the disposition of the enemy's forces and strength warranted, Anderson 
and he were to cross the Potomac about Leesburg, Early crossing higher 
up, and all to act in concert against AVashington or produce that impres- 
sion. Gen. Anderson was sent on the expedition, though only one divi- 
sion of his corps was detached, because the enemy knew he commanded in 
Longstreet's'place, and the idea might be taken that the whole corps was 
en route. It was possible, then, that Grant might send a corresponding 
force to counteract the movement, in which case the remainder of the corps 
could be sent, and the demonstration continued on a larger scalp. In brief, 
Gen. Lee explained that he was going to try to manoeu%Te Grant from the 
front of Richmond. The other alternative which presented itself was that 
under the supposition that Lee had weakened Idmself by a whole corps, 
Grant might be induced to attack, which Gen. Lee concieived to be at that 
time a very desirable object. 

No sooner had Anderson's and Fitzhugh Lee's troops reached Culpep- 
per Court-IIouse, than a despatch was received from Early, stating that, in 
consequence of the concentration of a large force in his front, wdiilst in the 
lower part of the Yalley, he had been compelled to fall back to the strong 
position at Fisher's Hill, and asking for reinforcements. This necessitated 
the movement of Anderson and Lee at once to his support ; and their 
march was at once directed to Front Royal, by the way of Chester Gap in 
the Blue Ridge. They arrived at Front Royal on the 15th August. Early 
was ascertained to be at Strasburg, some ten miles distant. The road con- 
necting the two places and running to the base of the Massanutton or Fort 
Mountain, was in possession of the enemy, who was also in large force in 
Early's front. 



592 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Under orders from Gen. Anderson, Fitzlii^h Lee started at daybreak 
on the morning of tlie 16th to communicate with Gen. Early and arrange 
a combined attack upon the enemy. The direct road being in possession 
of the enemy, he was obliged to cross the Massanutton Mountain, consist- 
ing at that point of three separate ranges in clos-e proximity to each other, 
very precipitous and rough. He was accompanied by only one staff 
oflicer, and they were obliged to ride mules, so steep was the ascent. Ho 
arrived at Gen. Early's head-quarters that afternoon, arranged many de- 
tails, and riding all night, was back with Gen. Anderson by daylight on 
the 17th. But the enemy had already commenced to retreat, and the op- 
portunity for striking a blow was lost. He had discovered Gen. Ander- 
son's position at Front Royal during the morning of the 16th, and had 
taken possession w^ith a cavalry force of " Guard Hill," a commanding 
position on the north bank of the north fork of the Shenandoah River, op- 
posite the town. Gen. Anderson, fearing that the force occupying it would 
be increased, and the position fortified, attacked the enemy during the 
afternoon of the 16th with Wickham's brigade of Lee's division, supported 
by Wofford's infantry brigade. After quite a spirited contest, the posses- 
sion of the hill was secured by the Confederates. Early in the morning 
of the 17th, Anderson and Lee commenced their advance, and followed up 
the enemy's retreat. At Winchester they united with Gen. Early's col- 
umn, driving the Federal troops through the town, capturing one piece of 
artillery and some prisoners. The pursuit was continued the next day, 
and the enemy driven to his stronghold at Harper's Ferry. 

The Confederate force now consisted of the infantry divisions of Eodes, 
Rarnseur, Gordon and "Warton, and Lomax's division of Yalley cavalry 
under Early and Breckinridge, and, under Anderson, Kershaw's division of 
infantry, and Fitzhugh Lee's division of cavalry. It happened that An- 
derson and Early liad been both made lieutenant-generals the same day, 
though the former was the rauking officer in consequence of being the 
senior major-general. Their last commissions being of same date, and 
Anderson being in Early's department, he did not like to assume command 
of the whole force. Early being his junior, could not command it, and a 
very anomalous state of things resulted, producing much confusion and 
want of co-operation. 

Instead of a campaign being inaugurated, which, from its offensive 
character and operations would compel moro troops to be drawn from 
Grant's army to counteract it, and which was contemplated by Gen. Lee, 
nothing was done. Nearly a month elapsed in marching and counter- 
marching in the vicinity of Charlestown, productive of no results. Gen. 
Lee, perceiving at last that nothing was likely to be accomplished, directed 
Anderson, unless something of importance was in contemplation, to move 
back with Kershaw's division to Culpepper Court-House, where he would 



BATTLE OF WINCHESTEE. 593 

be in a position to be transported to him in case be decided to carry out a 
movement against the enemy in front of Petersburg, then under consider- 
ation. 

Accordingly, on the 15tb September Anderson moved off witli Ker- 
sbaw's division en route to Culpepper. Early was tben in the vicinity of 
"Winchester, having moved back for convenience of supplies, after tlie ene- 
my had been driven to the river. Sheridan was between Charlestown and 
Berryville, with his advance covering the latter place. The cavalry pickets 
of the two armies were only a few miles apart. 



BATTLE OF -WTNCHESTEK. 

The month of August and the fore part of September had been con- 
sumed in desultory and apparently uncertain operations. ^Notwithstanding 
his great superiority in force, the enemy appeared to be unwilling to risk 
a general engagement, the result of which might be to lay open to the Con- 
federates the States of Maryland and Pennsylvania, before another army 
could be interposed to check them. But this excessive caution gradually 
wore off ; the aggressive temper of Sheridan asserted itself against Grant's 
timidity ; and the latter commander has since declared in an official paper, 
rather ineleganly, and with that taste for slang which seems to charactert- 
ize the military literature of the North : " Gen. Sheridan expressed such 
conlidence of success, that I saw there were but two words of instruction 
necessary — ' Go in.'' " 

But there appear to have been especial reasons for Sheridan's confi- 
dence. The effective strength of Gen. Early, reduced by the retm-n of 
Kershaw's division to the Petersburg lines, was about eighty-five hundred 
muskets, three battalions of artillery and less than three thousand cavalry. 
The latter were mostly armed with Enfield rifles, without pistols or sabres, 
and were but a poor match for the brilliant cavalry of the enemy, whose 
arms and equipments were complete. 

The day after Kershaw's departure. Early disposed his army as fol- 
lows : Kamseur's division of infantry (a very small one, some fifteen hun- 
dred muskets), Lee's division of cavalry, under Wickham (Gen. Fitzhugh 
Lee having been placed in command of all the cavalry), were at "Winches- 
ter. Wharton's division of infantry (a small one) and Lomax's cavalry 
were about Stephenson's Depot, some five miles from "Winchester on the 
railroad. Rodes' and Gordon's divisions, in charge of Gen. Early himselt^ 
were marched to Martinsburg, for the purpose of breaking up again the 
Baltimore and Ohio Raih'oad, reported to have been repaired since the 
Confederates had last visited it. Martinsburg is about twenty-two miles 
from Winchester. From the situation of the two armies it will be seen 
38 



594. THE LOST CAUSE. 

that Sheridan, besides being in position ahnost on Earlj's flank, was, by 
the way of White Post, nearer the Yallej turnpike, Early's line of com- 
munication, than a greater portion of the Confederate troops, with the ad- 
vantage of coming out in rear of Early's right at "Winchester, Sheridan 
saw the opportunity oflered : Kershaw, with his large division gone, and 
the remaining troops stretched out for twenty-two miles. He decided, of 
course, to attack, and commenced moving up with the intention of seizing 
and occupying Winchester before Early could retrace his steps. On the 
afternoon and night of the 18th he began his movement from Berryville, 
eleven miles from Winchester. 

Gen. Early left Martinsburg, though in ignorance of the enemy's move- 
ment, on the morning of the 18th, and encamped Gordon and Kodes' divi- 
sions that night in the vicinity of Bunker's Hill, some twelve miles from 
Winchester. 

By daylight on the 19th the Confederate pickets had been driven in, 
and the enemy's cannon were thundering at Ramseur's little band, drawn 
up beyond the town of Winchester. Lee's cavalry division was soon in 
position on Ramseur's left, and the battle began. Never did men fight 
better, for they sustained the repeated and furious assaults of an enemy 
immensely their superiour, and alone maintained the contest until eleven 
o'clock in the morning, when the advance of Rodes' division made its ap- 
pearance, Rodes' troops were hastily thrown into action, and their com- 
mander soon after killed, Gordon arrived next, and went in on our ex- 
treme left. Wharton, in command of Breckinridge's old division, arrived 
last, though nearer to Winchester than the other two. It had been holding 
in check two divisions of the enemy's cavalry under Torbert at Stephenson's 
depot, which had been sent around towards that place for the purpose of re- 
tarding the march of the troops hastening to the relief of Winchester. 

A portion of Lomax's division arrived with Breckenridge, the remainder 
having previously come up ; and with the greater j)art of Lee's division of 
csfvalry were transferred to the extreme right and placed opposite Wilson's 
cavalry to prevent it from swinging around and getting possession of the 
tm'npike in rear of Winchester, 

Gordon, previous to Bi'eckenridge's arrival, had driven the enemy by a 
most gallant charge in line of battle, but going too far, had been driven 
back in turn. A battery of six guns, supported by a brigade of cavalry, 
had been placed on Gordon's extreme left. It allowed the enemy's ad- 
vancing lines to pass it, their right almost brushing it, so close did it march 
I to its position. The battery was concealed under the edge of a hill. 
Hardly had the Federal lines got beyond it than its intrepid, adventurous 
commander. Major Breathed,* ordered the guns to be placed in battery 

* Of thte officer, whose reputation for daring was Imown throughout the armies of Vir^nia, and 
of whom Gen. Fitzhugh Lee says, '* he was the most recMesslj brave man I ever knew," there is 



BATTLE OF WINCHESTER. 595 

apon the crest of tlie liill. In a few minutes, a most destructive and un- 
expected "fire was poured into the enemy's ranks. It was sometliing more 
than an enfilading fire. The Federal line of battle was soon broken by it. 
Gordon seized the opportunity, turned, and charged ; and the retreat of 
the enemy soon degenerated into a rout. There appeared now but little 
doubt that the day was for the Confederates. 

But at this time the enemy's reserve infantry, the greater part of 
Crook's Corps (the Eighth), made its appearance, prolonging their extreme 
right. Gordon's successful advance was stoj)ped, for fear his flank was 
endangered. Breckinridge's troops, coming up at this time, were placed 
in opposition to Crook, and on Gordon's left ; but his flank was very much 
overlajjped by the superiour numbers of Crook. 

The movement which placed Breckinridge in line of battle to confront 
Crook, freed the enemy's two cavalry divisions, Merritt's and Averill's, 
under Torbert. Their line was formed on Crook's right, in the shape of a 
semi-circle, and completely environed the Confederate left and rear. Every 
man on the Confederate side was closely engaged. A few hundred cav- 
alry, and a small regiment of infantry, under Col. Patton, withdi-awn fi-om 
fighting in Crook's front, stayed for a little time the heavy movement of 
the enemy's cavalry. But it was impossible to hold it in check. The 
country was open ; every movement of the enemy was discernible on the 
Confederate left ; and yet there were no troops available to counteract what 

an authentic incident, related by his commander, connected with Lee's early battles on the Rapi- 
dan. 

Of this incident Fitzhugh Lee writes : " Maj. Jas. Breathed, commanding my horse artillery, by 
my order placed a single gun in position on a little knoll, as we were falling back, disputing the 
enemy's advance towards Spottsylvania Court-house. We knew the enemy's infantry were march- 
ing in column through a piece of woods, and the object was to fire upon the head of the column, as 
it debouched, to give the idea that their further advance would again be contested, and to compel 
them to develop a line of battle with skirmishers thrown out, &c. The delay which it was hoped 
to occasion by such demonstration was desirable in order to increase the chances of our infantry, 
then marching by another and parallel route to the Court-house. Under Maj. B's personal super- 
intendence, shells were thrown, and burst exactly in the head of the column as it debouched. The 
desired effect was obtained ; the head of the enemy's advance was scattered, and it was only with 
some difficulty a line of battle with skirmishers in its front was formed to continue the advance, 
I was sitting on my horse near Breathed, and directed him to withdraw his gun, but he was so 
much elated with his success that he begged to be allowed to give the enemy some more rounds. 
He fired until their line got so close that you could hear them calling out, " Surrender that gun, you 
rebel son of a b — h." Breathed's own horse had just been shot. The cannoneers jumped on their 
horses, expecting of course the gun to be captured, and retreated rapidly down the hill. B. was 
left alone. He Umbered the gun up, and jumped on the lead horse. It was shot from under him. 
Quick as lightning he drew his knife, cut the leaders out of the harness, and sprang upon a ewlhg 
horse. It was also shot from under him just as he was turning to get into the road. He the a 
severed the harness of the swing horse, jumped upon one of the wheel horses, and again made the 
desperate trial for life. The ground was open between the piece and woods ; the enemy had a 
full view of the exploit ; and Breathed at last dashed off unharmed, almost miraculously escaping 
through a shower of bullets." 



596 THE LOST CAUSE. 

was now the decisive movement of the enemy's cavalry. The Confederate 
left was comjaletelj turned ; the enemy was let in on the rear of the re- 
mainder of the line ; and the Confederate infantry, which had so long 
withstood fourfold odds, now pressed heavily in front by the enemy's in- 
fantry, and on the right by his cavalry, was compelled to give way under 
the combined assault, and at last broke in confusion, retiring from the field 
and through Winchester, with the enemy in pursuit. 

In this battle Gen. Early lost twenty-five himdred prisoners and five 
pieces of artillery. But in this battle there had been a surpassing display 
of courage in the men who had held their ground so long against the 
swarming forces of the enemy. It is quite certain that up to the moment 
when he put his cavalry in motion against the Confederate left, Sheridan 
had been virtually defeated, l^ot until the enemy's cavalry advanced on 
the Martinsburg road, attained the Confederate rear, and charged them in 
flank and rear, was there the least wavering. It is true that from that 
moment the action was lost. Early's line gave way in confusion ; his ar- 
tillery was fought to the muzzle of the guns, but could do nothing, and 
that night the Confederate forces were in full retreat up the Yalley. 



BATTLE OF FISHER S HILL. 

Gen. Early retired to Fisher's Hill, near Strasburg, a position overlook- 
ing the north branch of the Shenandoah River, and protected on the west 
by the North Mountain. Tliis position has been described as a very de- 
fensible one, indeed the strongest in the Yalley of Virginia. But a Con- 
federate officer, who has ably reviewed the campaign, remarks : " "When 
Early took up a position on the great range of hills above Strasburg, and 
waited to be attacked, he committed an error under the circumstances, 
which the General himself, at this day, would probably acknowledge. The 
ground there is unsuitable to receive an attack upon, unless the force stand- 
ing on the defensive is strong enough to reach from mountain to moun- 
tain. Gen. Jackson is said to have expressed this opinion, and it is certain 
that he never made a stand there. Gen. Early did so, and was flanked on 
the left." 

On the 22d October, Sheridan formed his force for a direct attack on 
Early's position, while Torbert's cavalry moved by the Luray Yalley to 
gain Newmarket, twenty miles in Early's rear, to cut off his retreat. 
While making a feint of an attack in front, a corps of infantry was sent 
around to Early's left, resting on the North Mountain, flanked it, attacked 
it in rear, and drove it from its entrenchments. The whole Confederate 
line was easily disrupted, and Early retired in great disorder, losing eleven 
pieces of artillery. Happily his line of retreat was secured, as Torbert had 



GEN. Sheridan's devastations. 597 

been held in check at Milford by a small division of Confederate cavalry 
under Gen. Wickham. 

The retreat was continued to the lower passes of the Blue Ridge. Gen. 
Early had lost half his army, and it was supposed that his career was now 
at an end. Sheridan pushed the pursuit to Staunton and the gaps of the 
Blue Ridge ; but, before returning to Strasburg, and taking position on the 
north side of Cedar Creek, this Federal commander resolved upon an act 
of barbarism, competing with the worst reputations of the war. He de- 
termined to devastate the upper portion of the Yalley as he abandoned it. 
This ruthless measure was not confined to the destruction of the crops, pro- 
visions, and forage ; mills were burned, farming implements were de- 
stroyed, and a wanton vengeance was inflicted upon the country for many 
years to come. Gen. Sheridan wrote from Strasburg, as if he were com- 
memorating a great deed, instead of writing down a record of imperish- 
able infamy : " In moving back to this point, the whole country, from the 
Blue Ridge to the North Mountain, has been made entirely untenable for 
a rebel army. I have destroyed over two thousand barns filled with wheat 
and hay and farming implements ; over seventy mills filled with flour and 
wheat ; have driven in front of the army over four thousand head of stock, 
and have killed and issued to the troops not less than three thousand sheep 
This destruction embraces the Luray Yalley and the Little Fort Valley, as 
well as the main valley." 

Of this and other like atrocities of the enemy, there has been attempted 
a very weak excuse, to the efi'ect that if the private property of the inhabit 
ants of the Confederacy had not been destroyed, it might have been con- 
verted to the uses of the belligerent Government, and have helped to sus- 
tain it. Once for all, it may be said that this excuse excludes every senti- 
ment of humanity in war, and may be logically carried to the last extremi- 
ties of savage warfare. Some time ago a great indignation was awakened 
in Northern newspapers, when a Northern officer justified his putting to 
ieath some children belonging to a hostile Indian tribe on the gi-ound 
that, if they had not been killed, they would have grown up to be men and 
chiefs, to fight the armies of the United States. But the logic of this was 
unimpeachable, quite as sound as that which justified the outrages of pri- 
vate property and deeds of devastation and horrour, committed by such 
men as Sheridan and Sherman. There are some things, even in war, 
which are to be done, or to be left undone, without regard to consequences. 
Modern war is not based upon logic ; it is not merely a question of how 
much ruin may be done ; it is not simple " cruelty," as Sherman defined 
it to the mayor of Atlanta ; it recognizes certain claims of humanity and 
indicates a class of outrages for which no selfish reason is commensurate, 
A writer of authority, treating of the law of nations, says : " When the 
French armies desolated, with fire and sword, the Palatinate in 1674, and 



598 THE LOST CAUSE. 

again in 1689, there was a general outcrj througliout Europe against such 
a mode of carrying on war ; and when the French minister Lonvois alleged 
that the object in view was to cover the French frontier against the inva- 
sion of the enemy, the advantage which France derived from the act was 
universally held to be inadequate to the suffering inflicted, and the act 
itself to be therefore unjustifiable." 



BATTLE or CEDAR CKEEK. 

Having received reinforcements, Gen. Early returned to the Valley in 
October. These reinforcements consisted of one division of infantry (Ker- 
shaw's), numbering twenty-seven hundred muskets, one small battalion of 
artillery, and. about six hundred cavalry, which about made up the Con- 
federate losses at Winchester and Fisher's Hill. On the 9th October, 
Rosser's cavalry, which had hung on Sheridan's rear, was attacked on the 
Strasburg pike, while a division of cavalry, moving by a back road, took 
him in flank. In this affair the enemy took eleven pieces of artillery and 
several hundred prisoners. On the 18tli October, Early was again at 
Cedar Creek, between Strasburg and "Winchester. He had less than ten 
thousand men, and about forty pieces of artillery. His force was inade- 
quate for open attack, and his only opportunity was to make a surprise. 
The enemy was posted on a line of low hills, the Eighth corps on the left, 
the Nineteenth corps in the centre, and the Sixth corps on the right, some- 
what in rear and in reserve. Early's dispositions for attack were to make 
a feint with light artillery and cavalry against the enemy's right, while the 
bulk of his forces marched towards the left where the Sixth corps was 
posted. 

The movement commenced a little past midnight. Whilst demonstra- 
tions were made against the Federal right, whence the sounds of musketry 
already announced a fight on the picket line, the flanking columns of the 
Confederates toiled along seven miles of rugged country, crossing the north 
fork of the Shenandoah by a ford about a mile to the east of the junction 
of Cedar Creek with that stream. The march was performed in profound 
silence. Many places had to be traversed by the men in single file, who 
occasionally had to cling to bushes on the precipitous sides of the moun- 
tain to assist their foothold. At dawn the flanking column was across the 
ford : Gordon's division in front, next Ramseur's, and Pegram's in reserve. 
A heavy fog yet favoured them. The enemy's pickets had not yet taken 
the alarm ; some of them had reported that they heard a heavy, muffled 
tramp and rustling through the underbrush, but no attention was paid 
to a supposed fancy, and no reconnoissance was sent out. Early had 
brought his coltimn, unperceived. to the rear of the left flank of the Fed- 



BATTLE OF CEDAR CEEEK. 59& 

eral force ; and it remained now but to close in npon the enemj, and fight 
rapidly. 

The surprise was complete. The Eighth corps was unable to form a 
Kne of battle, and in five minutes was a herd of fugitives. Many of the 
men awoke only to find themselves prisoners. The ISTineteenth corps was 
soon involved in the rout. The valorous Confederates pressed on, driving 
the whole Federal left and centre, slaying many of the enemy in their 
camps, capturing eighteen pieces of artillery, fifteen hundred prisoners, 
small arms without number, wagons, camps, everything on the ground. 

The retreat of the enemy was now a general one, the Sixth corps doing 
what it could to cover it. At Middletown an attempt was made to form 
a line of battle ; but tlie Confederates threatened a flank movement, got 
possession of the town, and put the enemy on what was supposed to be hie 
final retreat to "Winchester. 

The vigour of the pursuit was lost here. The fire and. flush of the 
valorous charge was quenched, as the men now betook themselves to 
plundering the Federal camps, taking no notice of the enemy in the dis- 
tance beyond some skirmishing and desultory artillery fire. But the ene- 
my had no idea of continuing his retreat to Winchester. At the first good 
ground between Middletown and Newtown the troops were rallied, a com- 
pact line formed, and the enemy soon put in a condition to resist further 
attack or take the offensive. 

The ]S[orthern newspapers, with their relish for dramatic circumstance, 
had a singular story of how the sudden apparition of Gen. Sheridan on a 
black horse flecked with foam, which he had galloped from Winchester, 
where he had slept the previous night, reassured his fugitive army, and 
restored the battle. But the fact is that Sheridan did not appear on the 
field until the army had reorganized a new line of battle and made its 
dispositions for attack, which he did not change in any respect. The 
counter-charge was made at three o'clock in the afternoon. The Con- 
federates were not prepared for it ; they had been demoralized by pillage ; 
when urged forward they had moved without enthusiasm ; and. when in 
the afternoon Gen. Early decided to attempt an advance, he was compelled 
to move cautiously, feeling his way with artillery. 

At the first contact with the enemy, Gordon's division broke ; Ker- 
shaw's and Kamseur's followed in retreat, and the field became covered 
with flying men. The artillery retired, firing slowly, and sustained only 
by Pegram's old brigade and Evan's brigade. Across Cedar Creek the 
enemy's cavalry charged in rear of the Confederate train without provok- 
ing a shot ; and a bridge on a narrow part of the road between the creek 
and Fisher's Hill having broken down, guns and wagons were abandoned. 
Many ordnance and medical stores, and twenty -three pieces of artillery, 
besides those taken in the morning by Early, were captured. About fif 



600 THE LOST CAUSE. 

teen hundred prisoners were taken, -whicli fully made up for those 
lost by the enemy in the morning. The day was completely turned 
against the Confederates and night closed with the enemy's infantry 
occupying their old camps, and his cavaliy pursuing the wreck of Early's 
army. 

"With reference to the disaster of Cedar Creek, Gen. Early published an 
address to his troops, ascribing to their misconduct the loss of the field, 
and attemping to break the censure levelled at the commander. He 
wrote : " 1 had hoped to have congratulated you on the splendid victory 
won by you on the morning of the 19th, at Belle Grove, on Cedar Creek, 
when you surprised and routed two corps of Sheridan's army, and drove 
back several miles the remaining corps, capturing eighteen pieces of artil- 
lery, one thousand five hundred prisoners, a number of colours, a large 
quantity of small arms and many wagons and ambulances, with the entire 
camps of the two routed corps ; but I have the mortification of announc- 
ing to you that, by your subsequent misconduct, all the benefits of that 
victory were lost, and a serious disaster incurred. Had you remained 
steadfast to your duty and your colours, the victory would have been one 
of the most brilliant and decisive of the war ; you would have gloriously 
retrieved the reverses at Winchester and Fisher's Hill, and entitled your- 
selves to the admiration and gratitude of your country. But many of you, 
including some commissioned officers, yielding to a disgraceful propensity 
for plunder, deserted your colours to appropriate to yourselves the aban- 
doned property of the enemy ; and, subsequently, those who had pre- 
viously remained at their posts, seeing their ranks thinned by the absence 
of the plunderers, when the enemy, late in the afternoon, with his shat- 
tered columns made but a feeble efibrt to retrieve the fortunes of the day, 
yielded to a needless panic, and fled the field in confusion, thereby con- 
verting a splendid victory into a disaster." 

But this explanation of the conversion of a victory into a disaster, as a 
personal defence of Gen. Early, is scarcely fair. If soldiers resort to pillag- 
ing on a field of victory the commander is the responsible party, unless 
where it is shown that he resorted to the most extreme measures to restrain 
a disorder so shameful and j)lainly deserving death on the spot, and that, 
despite all eSbrts, the men had passed completely beyond his control. 
The broad fact cannot be concealed that for four or five hours Gen. Early 
was in the condition of a commander who had lost the vigour of pursuit 
and was satisfied to put up with a half-way success. This disposition to 
pause in battle and be satisfied with a half victory was not the peculiar 
story of Cedar Creek. It was the cm-se of more than one Confederate 
commander. As Gen. Early counted his victory and paused in his career, 
the refluent wave of the enemy overtook him, swept away his laurels, and 
overwhelmed him with an unexpected disaster. The story is not difierent 



CLOSE OF THE VALLEY CAMPAIGN. 601 

from that of other Confederate battle-fields where a mediocre commandei 
has trifled with success. 

Gen. Early had received a stunning defeat from which his army never 
recovered. The battle of Cedar Creek practically closed the campaign in 
the Yalley, and most of Early's infantry were returned to Gen. Lee's 
lines. Breckinridge was detached and sent to command in the Soutli- 
western Department. The three divisions (composing what was known 
as the Second Army Corps) formerly conmianded by Rodes, Gordon, and 
Ramseur, were placed under the command of Gordon, the sole survivor of 
the three, and sent back to Gen. Lee. Nearly the whole of the cavalry 
were temporarily furloughed, the Government being unable to supply them 
with forage. Early was left with his. headquarters at Staunton, and what 
remained of Wharton's division constituted the Army of the Yalley. 

The unfortunate commander continued for some time to move uneasily 
up and down the Yalley, with his small force ; but all operations of 
moment had plainly ceased there ; there was not forage enough for any 
considerable body of cavalry ; and some weeks later we shall see the last 
appearance of Gen. Early on the military stage, at Waynesboro' ,where his 
command, consisting of about a thousand infantry, was captured, and the 
General with two staff officers escaped to Charlottesville, the melancholy 
remnant of an enterprise that had been planned to relieve Richmond and 
turn the scales of the war. 

In consequence of the disastrous campaign we have narrated, but not 
until a very late period of the war. Gen. Early was removed from com- 
mand. Gen Lee wrote to his subordinate with characteristic generosity : 

HEAD-auARTERS 0. S. ARMIES, March 30, 1865, 

Lieut.- Gen. J. A. Barly, FranTclin C. H., Ya. : 

Dear Sib : My telegram will have informed you that I deem a change of commanders 
in your department necessary, but it is due to your zealous and patriotic services that I 
Bhould explain the reasons that prompted my action. The situation of affairs is such 
tliat we can neglect no means calculated to develop the resources we possess to the 
greatest extent, and make them as efficient as possible. To this end it is essential that 
we should have the cheerful and hearty support of the people and the full confidence of 
the soldiers, without which our etforts would be embarrassed, and our means of resis- 
tance weakened. I have reluctantly arrived at the conclusion that you cannot command 
the united and willing co-operation which is so essential to success. Tour reverses in 
the Yalley, of which the public and the army judge chiefly by the results, have, I fear, 
impaired your influence both with the people and the soldiers, and would add greatly 
to the difficulties which will, under any circumstances, attend our military operations iu 
Southwestern Virginia. While my own confidence in your ability, zeal, and devotion 
to the cause is unimpaired, I have nevertheless felt that I could not oppose what seems to 
\e the current of opinion without injustice to your reputation and injury to the service. 
I therefore felt constrained to endeavour to find a commander who would be more likely 
to develop the strength and resources of the country, and inspire the soldiers with confi- 
dence, and, to accomplishi this purpose, thought it proper to yield my own opinion, aiul 



602 THE LOST CAUSE, 

defer to that of those to whom alone we can look for support. I am sure that you wil 
understand and appreciate my motives, and that no one will be more ready than your- 
self to acquiesce in any measures which the interests of the country may seem to require, 
regardless of all personal considerations. Thanking you for the fidelity and energy witb 
which you have always supported my efforts, and for the courage and devotion you 
have ever manifested in the service of the country, I am, very respectfully and truly, 
your obedient servant, 

E. E. LEE, General. 

Censure in the newspapers ran high against Gen. Earlj ; bnt it must 
1)8 remembered that this was at a time when the temper of the Southern 
people was irritable and exacting, impatient to be refreshed with what was 
now the rare experience of a victory. Gen. Early was not a popular man ; 
but he had had the reputation throughout the war of a hard, resolute 
fighter ; and Gen. Lee's familiar designation of him as " his bad old man " 
suited the pictm'e of a commander who garnished his speech with oaths, 
dressed in the careless, burly fashion of a stage-driver, and was ftimous for 
his hard, direct knocks in battle.* It was hinted in the newspapers that 



* The following sketch of Gen. Early is from a graphic pen, and its fund of anecdote is amus- 
ing and characteristic : — 

" He was a man past middle age, and of vigorous and athletic appearance. His stature ap- 
proached if it did not reach six feet, and he seemed to be capable of undergoing great fatigue. Hia 
hair was black and curling, and just touched with gray ; his eyes, dark and sparkling ; his smUe, 
ready and expressive, but somewhat sarcastic, as was the bent of his character. His dress was 
plain gray, with sUght decoration. Long exposure had made the old coat which he wore quite 
dingy. A wide-brim hat overshadowed his sparkling eyes, his swarthy features, and grizzled hair. 
His face, set upon a short neck, joined to stooping shoulders, attracted attention from every one. 
In the dark eye you could read the rp*^lute character of the man, as in his satirical smile you saw 
the evidence of that dry, trenchajf^^ often mordant humour, for which he was famous. The keen 
glance drove home the sarcastic speech, and almost every one who ventured upon word combats 
with Lieut.-General Early sustained a 'palpable hit.' The soldiers of his army had a hundred jests 
and witticisms about him. They called him ' Old Jube,' sometimes ' Old Jubilee.' They delighted 
to relate how, after the defeat of Fisher's Hill, when the troops were in full retreat, their commander 
had checked his horse, raised his arms aloft, and exclaimed, ' My God ! won't any of my men make 
a rally around Old Jubal ? ' To which a philosophic foot-soldier, calmly seeking the rear, replied : 
' Nary rally. General.' A similar anecdote, which may or may not be true, is even yet immensely 
relished by Early's old soldiers . He is said to have exclaimed, when he heard of Lee's retreat, 
' Now let Gabriel blow his horn. It is tune to die.' Everything about the soldier was characteris- 
tic and marked. Speaking slowly and with a species of drawl in his voice, all that he said waa 
pointed, direct and full of sarcastic force. These ' hits ' he evidently enjoyed, and he delivered 
them with the coolness of a swordsman making a mortal lunge. All the army had laughed at one 
of them. While marching at the head of his column, dusty in his dingy, gray uniform, and with 
his faded old hat over his eyes, he had seen leaning over a fence and looking at the column as it 
passed, a former associate in the Virginia Convention, who had violently advocated secession. 
This gentleman was clad in citizens' clothes — black coat and irreproachable shirt bosom — and greet- 
ed Early as he passed. The reply of the General was given with his habitual smile and sarcastic 
drawl : ' How are you ? ' he said. ' I think you said the Whigs wouldn't fight ! ' The blow waa 
rude, and made the whole army laugh. Of this peculiar humour a better instance still is given, 
it'ter Fisher's Hill, when hia whole army waa in complete retreat, and the Federal forces wereprea* 



GEN. EAKLY CRITICIZED. 603 

mucli of Early's disaster in the Yalley was due to his alleged intemper- 
ance, and that there had been too much " apple-jack " in the campaign 
But the charge of habitual intemperance was examined by a committee of 
the Confederate Congress, and disproved. It was not established indeed 
that Gen. Early was a believer in total abstinence — or as one of liis Irish 
friends remarks, that the man was always " leastly sober " — but it was 
conclusively shown that in the line of his duty he was never under the 
influence of drink, and to no such imprudence could be attributed any 
misfortune of his military life. 

The real character of Gen. Early's campaign appears in the narrative. 
Much of his disaster is to be fairly attributed to lack of numbers, his great 
disproportion to the enemy in this respect ; but at the same time it is not 
to be denied that his loss of artillery was excessive and peculiar, and that 
in the field at Cedar Creek he had not shown the nerve and grasp of a 
gi-eat commander. His loss of artillery was so notorious, that wags in 
Kichmond ticketed guns sent him " to Gen. Sheridan, care of Jubal Early." 
In a month he lost more than fifty guns. Briefly, it may be said that in 
the operations in the Valley Gen. Early committed no flagrant error, 
and did nothing to draw upon him a distinct and severe censure ; yet, at 
the same time, he certainly did not display in this campaign the qualities 
of a great commander, never rose above mediocrity, and, with a superiour 
army upon him, went headlong to destruction. 

The eS'ect of the Yalley campaign on the situation around Richmond 
may be almost said to have been decisive. The result of it, in this respect, 
was this : that it released a powerful force and made it available for Grant, 
while Gen. Lee could only make use of, as a corresponding force, the small 
remnant of a dispirited army. One of the highest and most intelligent 
Confederate Generals has not hesitated to express the opinion that " the 
battle of "Winchester was the turning-point of the fortunes of the war in 
Virginia." The view is not unreasonable when we consider what was the 
object of Early's campaign. A battle fought in the Valley with decisive 
results might have relieved Eichmond. Such was the idea of Gen. Lee. 
Battles were fought, but with decisive results for the enemy ; and Rich- 
mond fell. 

ing him close, he was riding with Gen. Breckinridge. It might have been supposed that their con- 
versation would relate to the disastrous events of the day, but Gen. Early did not seem to trouble 
himself upon that subject. In full retreat as they were, and followed by an enraged enemy, his 
companion was astounded to hear from Early the cool and nonchalant question : ' Well, Breckin- 
ridge, what do you think of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, in its bearings 
upon the rights of the South in the Territories ? ' The man who could amuse himself with pohti- 
cal discussions between Fisher's Hill and Woodstock on the 22d of September, 1864, must have 
been of hard stuff or peculiar humour. There were many persons in and out of the army who doubt- 
ed the soundness of his judgment — there were none who ever called in question the tough fibre of 
his courage." 



604 THE LOST CAUSE. 

A general opinion prevalent at Richmond, and apparently strengthened 
by the experiences of the Valley campaign, was that the Confederate cav- 
alry in Virginia had become very inefficient and unequal to its early repu- 
tation. The report is one of singular injustice, in view of the brilliant 
i-ecord of the cavalry for 1864, especially that part of it under the com- 
mand of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, the compeer and successor of Stuart, a model 
of chivalry and a leader whose star ascended to the highest realms of glory 
in the war. "We have elsewhere referred generally to the operations of 
the cavalry in Grant's early combination against Kichmond. It is a fact 
based upon official testimony, that Fitzhugh Lee's command fought nine 
consecutive days, commencing the day Grant crossed the Rapidan, and in 
that time lost one-half of its numbers in killed and wounded, its loss in 
prisoners in the same time being not more than thirty ! His command 
was composed of Virginians, save one gallant company from Maryland. 
The simple inscription of the fact we have related is an undying title of 
glory for the cavalry of Virginia, testifying as it does to a courage and 
devotion, the parallels of which are scarcely to be found out of the pages 
of fabulous history. 

It is to be remarked that the disasters of the Valley campaign were in 
a great measure due to the extreme numerical inferiority of the Con- 
federate cavalry to that of the enemy. The distribution of our cavalry at 
this time in Virginia is a curious study and excites criticism. Only two 
brigades of cavalry were sent to the Valley by Gen. Lee. Gen. Grant sent 
two large divisions of three brigades each. At Petersburg and Richmond, 
the numbers of our cavalry exceeded those of the enemy. But unfortu- 
nately, the country in this vicinity (especially in Dinwiddle county) was but 
little adapted for this superiority to be displayed, it being very wooded 
and traversed only by narrow roads. 

Grant had Gregg's division of two brigades on his left flank on the 
south side of the James — and four regiments under Kautz on the north 
side, guarding his right flank. Confronting Kautz, the Confederates had 
Gary's brigade, and opposite to Gregg, Bulter's division (Hampton's old 
command) of three brigades, W. H. F. Lee's division, of two brigades, 
and a detached brigade under Dearing, Rosser's brigade was after- 
wards sent to the Valley, but not until the battle of Winchester had been 
fought. 

The Valley was especially adapted for the operations of cavalry. It is 
universally admitted that a preponderating force of cavalry gives immense 
advantages in a country suitable for its employment ; for cavalry can live 
on the lines of communication of the army opposed to it, easily avoiding 
any infantry sent after it. In the Valley, where cavalry could be used to 
advantage, the Federal superiority was some six or seven thousand. Around 
Petersburg, where cavalry could only fight dismounted, our numbers were 



THE CONFEDERATE CAVALRY IN VIEGINIA. 605 

in excess of tliose of the enemj, but not, it is true, to tlie degree of the 
enemy's superiority in the other field of operations. If, however, the pro- 
portion had been to some extent reversed, and something like an equal 
match been made with the enemy's cavalry in the Yalley, the result might 
have been difi'erent, or at least there have been one error and its con- 
sequences less iu that campaign. 



CHAPTER XXXYII. 

SEN. OIWINt's opinion OF MANCEUVEING. — LEE HIS MASTER IN EVERT BRANCH 05" GENERAL- 
SHIP. — THE FEDERALS GET POSSESSION OF THE WELDON RAILROAD. — ACTION AT REAMs' 
STATION. — OPERATIONS NORTH OF JAMES RIVER. — SURPRISE AND CAPTURE OF FORT HAR- 
RISON. ATTEMPT OF THE CONFEDERATES TO RETAKE IT DISCONCERTED AND DEFEATED, 

GRANT PLANS A GENERAL ADVANCE IN OCTOBER. — THREE CORPS OF THE ENEMY IN MO- 
TION. — ATTEMPT TO TURN THE CONFEDERATE POSITION ON HATCHER's RUN, AND SEIZE 
THE SOUTHSIDE RAILROAD. — DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY AND FRUSTRATION OF HIS PLANS. — 
PUBLIC ATTENTION DRAWN TO GEORGIA. — SHERMAN's MARCH TO THE SEA. — HE RETURNS 

from gatlesville to atlanta. — the work of destruction commenced at rome. — 
burning op atlanta. — more than four thousand houses consumed. — outline of 
Sherman's march from Atlanta. — the country it traverses full of supplies. — 

PILLAGE OF MADISON. — CONCENTRATION OF THE ENEMY's FORCES AT MILLEDGEVILLE. — 
AN AFFAIR OF MILITIA AT GRISWOLDSVILLE. — KILPATRICK'S DEMONSTRATION ON AUGUS- 
TA. — STATEMENT OF CONFEDERATE FORCES THERE. — SHERMAN's MARCH TO MILLEN. — HE 
MEETS WITH NO RESISTANCE. — HIS DEVASTATION OF THE COUNTRY. — PROWESS OF HIS 
TROOPS IN PILLAGE AND VILLANY. — NOTHING BUT MILITIA AND HASTY LEVIES TO OPPOSE 

HIM. — Sherman's approach to savannah. — fort m'allister taken by assault^ — 

GALLANTRY OF THE CONFEDERATE GARRISON. — GEN. HARDEE EVACUATES SAVANNAH. — 
EXTENT OF SHERMAn's CAPTURES. — HOW MUCH OF HIS ACHIEVEMENTS WAS " SIMPLE 
WASTE AND DESTRUCTION." — REVIEW OF " THE GREAT MARCH." — ABSURD HISTORICAL 
COMPARISONS IN THE NORTH. — CHARACTER OF GEN. SHERMAN. — HIS CHARLATANISM. — HIS 
PROPER PLACE IN HISTORY. 

It is said that at the opening of the campaign on the Eapidan, Gen. 
Meade, in conversation with Gen. Grant, was telling him that he proposed 
to manoeuvre thus and so ; whereupon Gen. Grant stopped him at the 
word " manoeuvre," and said, " Oli ! 1 never manccuvreP We have seen 
that the famous Federal commander, who thus despised manoeuvring, had 
failed to destroy Lee's army by " hammering continuously " at it ; had 
failed to take either Eichmond or Petersburg by a coujp de main. We shall 
now see that he was no longer unwilling to avail himself of the resource 
of manoeuvring ; and we shall observe that in this resource also, he was 
overmatched by Lee, who showed himself his master in every art of war, 



CAPTUKE OF FORT HAEEISON. 607 

and indeed left Grant not a single branch of generalship in which he 
might assert his reputation. 

For some time after the mine explosion, but little was done by the 
Federals in front of Petersburg. In the remaining months of summer and 
autumn, some manoeuvres were executed with more or less breadth of 
design, which may be briefly stated here in the order of their occurrence. 

On the 18th and 19th August, Grant's left under Warren, after a 
defeat on the first day, succeeded in holding the Weldon Railroad. This 
line of communication with the South was not of any great importance to 
Gen. Lee, as long as he held the road to Danville, the main avenue to the 
fertile grain districts of the South. A series of severe actions, however, 
ensued to break Warren's hold upon the road ; and he maintained his 
position only after a loss which he himself officially reports as 4,455 killed, 
wounded, and missing. Meanwhile Hancock's corps was brought in rear 
of the position held by Warren, and ordered to destroy a southward section 
of the road. On the 25th August, this force was encountered at Reams' 
station by A. P. Hill's corps under Wilcox, Heth, and Mahonc. A vig- 
orous attack of Heth broke the enemy's line, and drove a division which 
was in reserve, while one line of breastworks was carried by the Con- 
federate cavalry under Gen. Hampton. The results of the day were, 
twelve stands of colours captured, and nine pieces of artillery, ten caissons, 
2,150 prisoners, and 3,100 stand of small-arms. The Confederate loss was, 
in cavalry, artillery, and infantry, 720 men, killed, wounded, and missing. 
Warren, however, still continued to hold the Weldon railroad ; but after a 
sum of disaster, as we have seen, that was a very extravagant price, com- 
pared with the little real importance of the acquisition. The road was 
permanently retained by the enemy ; and he now proceeded to form a line 
of redoubts connecting the new position with the old left of the army on 
the Jerusalem plank road. 

About the close of September, attention was again drawn to operations 
north of James River, and a movement on Gen. Butler's front resulted in 
a serious disaster to the Confederates, and, it must be confessed, accom- 
plished one real success for this ill-stared General in the operations 
against Richmond. On the night of the 28th September, JButler crossed 
to the north side of the James, with the corps of Birney and Ord, and 
moved up the river with the design of attacking the very strong fortifica- 
tions and entrenchments below Chapin's farm, known as Fort Harrison. 
A portion of Butler's force was moved on the Newmarket road, and while 
a severe engagement was occurring there, a column of the enemy made a 
flank movment on Fort Harrison, and practically succeeded in surprising 
this important work, which surrendered after a very feeble resistance on 
the part of the artillery, and while a force of Confederates was on the 
double-quick to reinforce it. 



608 THE LOST CAUSE. 

This fort occupied a commanding position below Drewry's Bluff, and 
constituted the main defence of that part of our lines. Its loss, with fifteen 
pieces of artillery, was a severe blow to the Confederates, attended with 
circumstances of mortification, and the resolution was quickly taken to 
attempt its recapture. Gen. Field was for attacking at once before the 
enemy could strengthen the position ; but he was overruled, and the attack 
deferred until the afternoon of the next day. It was arranged that Ander- 
son's, Bratton's, and Law's brigades of Field's division should make the 
assault in front, while Hoke was to attack on the other side, taking advan- 
tage of a ravine by which he was enabled to form his men within two or 
three hundred yards of the fort. The plan of attack miscarried by a sin- 
gular circumstance. Anderson's men being put in motion merely to adjust 
the line, misunderstood the orders of their commander, leaped the breast- 
works of the enemy, rushed forward with a yell, and were soon past con- 
ti'ol. This necessitated rapid movement on the part of the other brigades. 
Gen. Hoke, awaiting the signal that had been agreed upon for action, did 
not move ; and the enemy was thus enabled to concentrate his fire on the 
scattered assault of the brigades of Field's division. Law's brigade accom- 
plished its object in retaking a redan to the left of the fort, thus protecting 
our left flank ; but the main attack failed ; and the general result was that 
the lodgment of Butler's army on the north side of the James was secured, 
and a position thus obtained very menacing to Richmond. 

Before settling down to winter-quarters. Gen. Grant determined to 
make a last vigorous attempt to retrieve the campaign and to strike one 
more blow for the capture of Petersburg. The sequel of this enterprise 
was the occasion of the usual attempt to misrepresent it as a mere recon- 
noissance in force ; but there can no longer be any doubt that Gen. Grant, 
in the movement of October, 1864, designed a real advance, and hoped to 
achieve a success which would influence the approaching Pesidential elec- 
tion, only a few days distant, and electrify the North with the news of a 
great victory. 

He made every preparation to conduct the movement on the largest 
Bcale. Three days were occupied in the preparations. The hospitals were 
emptied of their sick and wounded, all of whom were sent to the rear. 
Five days rations were issued to the troops. All superfluous or unneces- 
sary baggage was sent to the rear with the trains. The army was put in 
what is called light marching order. In fact, nothing was left undone to 
insure the success of the undertaking. During the night preceding the 
movement nearly all the Federal troops were withdrawn from the breast- 
works on both sides of the James and massed some distance in the rear, 
ready to march forward at daylight. Guns were mounted to cover Grant's 
communications with his base at City Point, in case the Confederates 
should take possession of the trenches he had evacuated, and every indica- 



grant's attempt on the southside kaileoad. 609 

tion pointed to a design to abandon the line before Petersburg, and take 
possession of the Southside raih-oad. 

The movement occupied three corps of the enemy, and commenced at 
daylight of the 27th October. The right of the Confederate entrenched line 
rested on the east bank of Hatcher's Run ; and it was hoped to turn this, 
and then march upon and lay hold of the Southside railroad, which was 
Lee's principal communication. As the advance of the enemy moved for- 
ward to the Boydton plank road, the Confederate pickets and skirmishers 
were encountered, and a lively fire of musketry was kept up all the morn- 
ing. "Wlien the Boydton road was reached the Confederates were found 
strongly entrenched at every point. It was thought that by making a 
wide detour these intrenchments coijld be taken in flank and the Con- 
federates forced back to Petersburg ; but when Hancock's corps reached a 
point below where the "Confederate works were supposed to terminate, they 
were found to extend a considerable distance in the direction of Stony 
Creek, and their appearance was so formidable that it was deemed im- 
prudent to attempt to carry them. 

During Hancock's march towards what was supposed to be the ex- 
treme right of the Confederate line, a gap occurred between his right and 
the left of the Fifth corps. The Confederates were not slow to perceive 
the advantage. Gen. Heth had crossed Hatcher's Run to attack the 
enemy, and Mahone's division quickly assailed Hancock's right in its ex- 
posed situation, driving back Gibbon's division more than a mile, and in- 
flicting upon it considerable loss. Meanwhile Hampton's cavalry fell upon 
the rear of Hancock, and increased the disorder. Mahone captured four 
hundred jDrisoners, three stand of colours, and six pieces of artillery. A 
subsequent efibrt of the enemy to recover his position was bravely resisted ; 
Gen. Mahone broke three lines of battle ; and night found him standing 
firmly on the Boydton road, and successfully resisting all efibrts to drive 
him from it. 

Finding the Confederates strongly fortified along the Boydton road, 
and also on both sides of Hatcher's Run, and seeing the hopelessness of at- 
tempting to break through works fully as formidable as those before Peters- 
burg, Grant issued orders for the troops to withdraw to their original posi- 
tion, — that is, the entrenchments in front of Petersburg — and during the 
night they retraced their steps, and were settled back in their old camps. 
The design to turn the Confederate position and take possession of the 
Southside railroad, had been completely frustrated ; and thus failed, almost 
shamefully. Grant's ambitious movement of October, 1864. 

"While thus the Confederate lines around Richmond and Petersburg 

stood successful and defiant, the shadow of a great misfortune fell on 

another part of the country. In the last months of 1864, public attention 

was drawn unanimously and almost exclusively after the march of Sher- 

39 



610 THE LOST CAUSE. 

man through the State of Georgia ; and to this event, fraught with conse- 
quences and recriminations eventually fatal to the Confederacy, we must 
now direct the course of our narrative. 



SHERMANS MARCH TO THE SEA- 

At last accounts of operations in Georgia, Gen. Sherman was meditat- 
ing a march to the sea-board. Preparations were made to abandon all the 
posts south of Dalton, and from Gaylesville and K.ome orders were issued 
concerning the new movement. In the latter place commenced the work 
of destruction : a thousand bales of cotton, two flour mills, two tanneries, 
foundries, machine-shops, depots, store-houses, and bridges were set on 
tire ; the torch was applied to private dwellings, and the whole town 
wrapped in a fearful and indiscriminate conflagration. The march back 
to Atlanta left a track of smoke and flame. 

Having concentrated his troops at Atlanta bj the 14th of November, 
Sherman was ready to commence his march, threatening both Augusta and 
Macon. On the night of the 15th the torch was applied to Atlanta ; and 
where the merciless commander had already created a solitude, he deter- 
mined to make a second conflagration, by the light of which his marching 
columns might commence their journey to the sea. The work was done 
with terrible completeness ; buildings covering two hundred acres were in 
flames at one time ; the heavens were an expanse of lurid fire ; and amid 
the wild and terrific scene the Federal bauds played " John Brown's soul 
goes marching on." The next morning Sherman's army moved from a 
scene of desolation such as had occurred in no modern picture of civilized 
war. From four to five thousand houses were reduced to ruins ; and four 
hundred left standing was the melancholy remnant of Atlanta. ISTearly 
all the shade trees in the park and city had been destroyed, and the sub- 
urbs, stripped of timber, presented to the eye one vast, naked, ruined, de- 
serted camp. 

The main outline of Sherman's march was, that Howard, with the 
right wing, should follow the Georgia Central road, running southeast 
through Macon and Milledgeville to Savannah ; while Slocum, command- 
ing the left wing, was to march directly east, on the railroad leading from 
Atlanta to Augusta, destroying it as he went. Two columns of cavalry — 
one to the north of Slocum, and the other to the south of Howard — were 
to protect their flanks, and conceal entirely from view the routes of the in- 
fantry. An order directed the army " to forage liberally on the march." 

The country immediately around Atlanta had been foraged by Slocum'a 
corps when it held the city ; but two days' march brought Sherman's 
troops into regions of such abundance as were scarcely supposed to exist 



Sherman's march thkough geoegia. 611. 

witliin the limits of the Southern Confederacy. There were, indeed, rcanv 
parts of the Confederacy which the difficulties of transportation had gorged 
with supplies, and none more so, perhaps, than that part of Georgia now 
traversed by Sherman's troops. There were pits of sweet potatoes, yards 
of poultry and hogs, and cellars of bacon and flour, offering abundance on 
every hand, and gratifying the soldiers with a change of diet. It is said 
" hard tack " was scarcely heard of in Sherman's army on its march 
through Georgia. The cattle trains soon became so large that it was diffi- 
cult to drive them along ; and they were turned nightly into the immense 
fields of ungathered corn to eat their fill, while the granaries were crowded 
to overflowing with both oats and corn. 

Slocum continued to move out on the Augusta line, destroying the rail- 
road as he advanced, until he reached" Madison. This, a pretty town of 
two thousand inhabitants, was pillaged, the stores gutted, and the streets 
filled with furniture and household goods, broken and wrecked in mere 
wantonness. From Madison Slocum turned suddenly south towards Mil- 
ledgeville, and on the 21st November entered the capital of Georgia. 
Meanwhile Howard, covered by a cloud of Kilj)atrick's cavalry, had de- 
monstrated on Macon, and crossing the Ocmulgee, had pressed on towards. 
Milledgeville ; Sherman's forces being thus rapidly concentrated at the 
capital of Georgia, after having threatened both Augusta and Macon, thus 
confounding the Confederates as to his intentions. 

A part of Howard's command had been left at Griswoldsville, ten miles 
east of Macon, for demonstrative purposes merely. It was attacked by a 
force of Confederate militia, which marched out from Macon, and were 
severely repulsed by the enemy's artillery. This afi'air, small as it was, 
was the most serious fight of Sherman's campaign from Atlanta to the sea. 

Having sufficiently rested at Milledgeville, Sherman resumed his march 
eastward ; while Kilpatrick's cavalry continued to operate towards Au- 
gusta, advancing as far as Waynesboro', to create the impression of a heavy 
movement upon Augusta. There had been concentrated at this city some 
Confederate militia, two or three South Carolina regiments, and a portion 
of Hampton's command, sent there to remount. Even if the real move- 
ment of Sherman's army had been known, this force could not have inter- 
posed any serious obstacle to the advance of his main body, as long as his 
left wing was used as a strong arm thrust out in advance, ready to encoun- 
ter any force which might attempt to bar the way. While Kilpatrick 
demonstrated savagely upon Augusta, Sherman marched rapidly on Mil- 
ieu, reaching it on the 2d December. 

He had already penetrated and devastated the richest portion of Geor- 
gia, and was now on the line of the pine forests that sloped to the sea. 
For a hundred miles he had left behind him a wreck of railroads and 2 
desolated country ; he had consumed the fat of the land, and he had strewr 

V 



612 THE LOST CAUSE. 

every mile of bis marcli with tlie evidences of savage warfare. His army 
had been permitted to do whatever crime could, compass and cruelty in- 
vent. A Northern correspondent, who travelled with the army, thus re- 
lates its prowess in pillage and all provinces of cowardly violence : " Such 
little freaks as taking the last chicken, the last pound of meal, the last bit 
of bacon, and the only remaining scraggy cow, from a poor woman and 
her flock of children, black or white not considered, came under the order 
of legitimate business. Even crockery, bed-covering, or cloths, were fair 
spoils. As for plate, or jewelry, or watches, these were things rebels had 
no use for. Men with pockets plethoric with silver and gold coin ; soldiers 
sinking under the weight of plate and fine bedding materials ; lean mules 
and horses, with the richest trappings of Brussels carpets, and hangings of 
fine chenille ; negro wenches, particularly good-looking ones, decked in 
satin and silks, and sporting diamond ornaments ; ofiicers with sparkling 
rings, that would set Tifi^any in raptures — gave colour to the stories of 
hanging up or fleshing an ' old cuss,' to make him shell out. A planter's 
house was overrun in a jifly ; boxes, drawers, and escritoires were ran- 
sacked with a laudable zeal, and emptied of their contents. If the spoils, 
were ample, the depredators were satisfied, and went off in peace ; if not,' 
everything was torn and destroyed, and most likely the owner was tickled 
with sharp bayonets into a confession where he had his treasures hid. If 
he escaped, and w^as hiding in a thicket, this was prima facie evidence 
that he was a skulking rebel ; and most likely some rufiian, in his zeal to 
get rid of such vipers, gave him a dose of lead, which cured him of his 
Seccsh tendencies. Sorghum barrels were knocked open, bee-hives rifled, 
while their angry swarms rushed frantically about. Indeed, I have seen a 
soldier knock a planter down because a bee stung him. Should the house 
be deserted, the furniture is smashed in pieces, music is pounded out of 
four hundred dollar pianos with the ends of muskets. Mirrors were won- 
derfully multiplied, and rich cushions and carpets carried off to adorn 
teams and war-steeds. After all was cleared out, most likely some set of 
stragglers wanted to enjoy a good fire, and set the house, debris of furni- 
ture, and all the surroundings, in a blaze. This is the way Sherman's 
army lived on the country." 

The sum of these villanies has passed into Korthem history as a weight 
of martial glory. But the day will yet come when the hero of such a 
story, instead of enjoying as now the plaudits of ferocious and cowardly 
mobs, will obtain the execrations of civilized mankind. The facility of his 
progress was no achievement of genius to illuminate a record of villany. 
It is clear enough, when it is known that there was nothing to oppose hia 
n\arcli but some hasty levies of regular troops, and clans of scattered mili- 
tia. It is melancholy to look over the map of this march, a region of 
Bwamp and thicket, and observe that in no portion of it could a field be 



CAPTURE OF FOKT MCALLISTER. 613 

found adequate to the display of ten thousand men, and reflect how small 
a Confederate force, put between Sherman and the sea, might have dis- 
})uted his march, exacted a bloody toll at every defile, and brought him to 
grief and disaster. But there was no such force. The general story of 
the march is that the Confederates had no partisan fighting as in days 
past ; that their levies of regular troops did not make their appearance in 
season for a concentration of strength at any one point ; that Hardee, hav- 
ing a command of not more than ten thousand men, remained to cover 
Savannah ; that the clans of militia and small detachments of Wheeler's 
cavalry were utterly unable to cope with the enemy, and were rather cal- 
culated to provoke his enterprise than to impede his march ; and that the 
consequence was that the sum of opposition to Sherman's march was little 
more than a series of small skirmishes, without result on either side. 

On the 2d December Sherman's army pivoted upon Milieu, swung 
slowly round from its eastern course, and swept down in six parallel col- 
umns, by as many different roads, towards Savannah. About ten mites 
from the city his left wing struck the Charleston Railroad, and encoun- 
tered some Confederate skirmishers, which indicated for the first time the 
presence of Hardee's army. Sherman's right wing was now thrown for- 
ward ; his army closed gradually and steadily in upon Savannah ; and on 
the 10th December it lay in line of battle, confronting the outer works 
about five miles distant from the city. His first task was to open com- 
munication with Dahlgren's fleet, which lay in Ossabaw Sound, and he 
therefore determined to capture Fort McAllister, at the mouth of the 
Ogeechee, which enters the ocean but a few miles soutli of the Savannah. 

Fort McAllister was a large enclosure, with wide parapets, a deep 
ditch and thickly-planted palisades. There were twenty- one guns, large 
and small, in the fort, all mounted eti barbette. It had resisted two or 
three bombardments of the enemy's iron-clads ; and it appears that Gen. 
Hardee had overlooked the jDOssibility of a land attack, and had neglected 
to strensrthen the o;arrison. Anvhow the Confederate commander was not 
up to the quick decision of Sherman, who, instead of building entrench- 
ments and rifle-pits, resolved to take the fort by assault. A whole divi- 
sion was ordered for the work, on the evening of the 30th December. The 
fort was commanded by Major Anderson; and its garrison, at the time of 
attack, was less than two hundred men. Tlie fact that its guns were 
mounted en barbette exposed the gunners to the deadly aim of sharp- 
shooters ; and as the division of the enemy's troops commanded by Gen. 
Ilazen advanced to the assault, it was found that the artillery of the fort 
did but little execution upon them. The Federals went easily over the 
parapet ; but the little Confederate garrison, although desperately out- 
numbered, fought to the last. Many of these devoted men disdained quar- 
ter, and were bayoneted at their posts. Capt. Clinch, who commanded 



614 THE LOST CAUSE. 

the artillery, refused to surrender until he was disabled hj three sabre and 
two gun-shot wounds, and faint from loss of blood. 

When Sherman saw the Federal flag raised upon Fort McAllister, he 
seized a slip of paper, and telegraphed to "Washington : " I regard Savan- 
nah as already gained." The possession of the fort opened Ossabaw 
Sound, effected communication with Dahlgren's fleet, and indeed made 
the capture of Savannah, where Hardee appeared to be shut up with ten 
or twelve thousand men, but a question of time. But it was Sherman's 
hope to capture Hardee's army with the city ; and movements were made 
to close up all avenues of escape, Sherman's army stretching from the 
Savannah to the Ogeechee River, while Foster's troops covered the rail- 
road to Charleston. It was intended to place a division to operate with 
Foster by way of Broad Kiver ; but while Sherman's flank movement was 
in process of operation, Hardee outwitted him, and on the night following 
the enemy's demand for the surrender of the city, the Confederates had 
evacuated it, and were on the Carolina shore. 

The evacuation was a com^Dlete surprise to Sherman. On the night of 
the 28th December, Hardee opened a fierce bombardment, expending his 
ammunition without stint. After dark, he threw his men on rafts and 
steamboats across the river to the South Carolina shore. The night was 
dark, with a fierce gust of wind deadening the sounds of the wagons and 
the tramp of the troops. As morning broke, the attention of the enemy 
was excited at last by unusual sounds, and his pickets were advanced on 
the extreme left of the line. Meeting no opposition, they pushed still fur- 
ther, crawled through the abatis, floundered through dikes and ditches, 
scaled the first line of works, and found it deserted. All the ordnance 
stores and supplies which Hardee could not transport, had been destroyed 
before the evacuation ; he had burned the ship-yard and sunk two iron- 
clads ; but all the rest of the uninjured city fell into the hands of the 
enemy. 

Sherman announced his success in a characteristic despatch. He wrote 
to President Lincoln : " I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city 
of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammuni- 
tion, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." And thus ended 
the story of the march to the sea. In his official report of his achieve- 
ments. Gen. Sherman wrote : " We have consumed the corn and fodder in 
the region of country thirty miles on either side of a lino from Atlanta to 
Savannah, as also the sweet potatoes, cattle, hogs, sheep, and poultry, and 
have carried away more than ten thousand horses and mules, as well as a 
countless number of their slaves. I estimate the damage done to the State 
of Georgia and its military resources at one hundred millions of dollars ; at 
least twenty millions of which has inm-ed to our advantage, and the re- 
mainder is simple waste and destruction^ 



CHAKACTEK OF GEN. SHETIMAN. 615 

The IlTortli exhibited its characteristic measure of greatness bj taking 
Sherman's " march from the mountains to the seas " as the greatest mili- 
tary exploit of modern times. It fitted the Northern idea of magnitude. 
It was, of course, " the Great March," as everything the North admired, 
from a patent-machine to an army, was " the great." But it is difficult 
for a sober historian to find in the easy marches of Sherman through 
Georgia, any great military merit, or to discover in the excessively vulgar 
character of this commander any of the elements of the hero. Where there 
is nothing to oppose an armyj the mere accomplishment of distances is no 
great wonder or glory. From the time Sherman left Gaylesville to the 
day he encountered the lines around Savannah, he never had a thousand 
men on his front to dispute his advance ; he had nothing to threaten his 
rear beyond a few bodies of Confederate horse ; he moved through a coun- 
try so full of supplies that his own commissariat was scarcely taxed to sub- 
sist his army ; he himself telegraphed to Washington : " Our march was 
most agreeable," and compared it to " a pleasure-trip." And yet this 
pleasant excursion the North insisted upon amplifying as a great military 
exploit, to be compared with Napoleon's march to Moscow, and other 
splendid adventures of invasion, while the chief excursionist was raised to 
the dignity of a hero. 

Sherman is an example of the reputation achieved in the North by 
intrepid charlatanism and self-assertion. He had elements of Northern 
popularity outside of the severe circle of military accomplishments. His 
swagger was almost irresistible ; he wrote slang phrases in his official de- 
spatches ; his style was a flash Fourth-of-July tangled oratory, that never 
fails to bring down the applause of a Northern mob. It is the office of 
history to reduce the reputations of the gazette. The man who is now 
known in Northern newspapers as a hero of the war and luminary of the 
military age will scarcely be known in future and just history, further than 
as the man who depopulated and destroyed Atlanta, essayed a new code 
of cruelty in war, marched so many miles, achieved much bad notoriety, 
and ended with a professional fame mediocre and insignificant, holding a 
place no longer conspicuous in the permanent records of the timett. 



CHAPTER XXXVIIl. 

TUB EXCHANGE OF PEISONEES, AND THEIR TREATMENT IN CAPTIVITY. — EXCEEDING INTEBB81 
OF THE SUBJECT. — SLIGHT ACCOUNT OF PRISONERS IN THE EARLY PERIODS OF THE WAR. 
— MR. BOYCe's PROPOSITION. — THE WOOL-COBB NEGOTIATION. — THE FORT DONELSON CAP- 
TURES. — BAD FAITH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. — THE CARTEL OF 1862. — CHARACTER 
OF COMMISSIONER OULD. — HIS HUMANE AND ZEALOUS SERVICES. — SHAMEFUL VIOLATION 
OF THE CARTEL BY THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES. — SOLEMN PROTEST OF COMMISSIONER 
OULD. — COUNTER-CHARGE OF THE FEDERALS. — IT IS DISPROVED BY COMMISSIONER OULD. 
— CASE OF STREIGHT. — THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DECLARES PAROLES VOID. — COMMIS- 
SIONER OULD DENOUNCES THE CHEAT. — HIS RETALIATION WITH RESPECT TO THE VIOKS- 
BURG PRISONERS. — HE WAIVES THE CARTEL, AND MAKES A NEW PROPOSITION. — HE SENDS 
TO WASHINGTON LISTS OF MORTALITY IN THE ANDEESONVILLE PRISON. — THE FEDERAL 
GOVERNMENT DOES NOT REPLY. — ITS PERSISTENT AND INHUMAN SILENCE. — EXPLANATION 
OF IT. — THE WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT RESOLVED TO MAKE A CASE OF "REBEL BARBAR- 
ITY." — THE SITE, ARRANGEMENTS AND DISCIPLINE OF THE ANDEESONVILLE PRISON. — 
EXPLANATION OF THE SUFFERING AND MORTALITY THERE. — EXTEAOBDINAEY PEOPOSI- 
TION OF THE OONFEDEEATE GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE WITHOUT EQUIVALENTS AND WITH- 
OUT FORMALITY ALL SICK AND WOUNDED FEDERAL PRISONERS. — SECRETARY STANTON 
DEAF TO THE CEY OF THE SUFFERERS. — HIS GREAT GUILT. — EXCHANGES RESUMED UNDER 
GEN. grant's AUTHORITY. EEPOET OF THE JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE CONFED- 
ERATE CONGRESS, APPOINTED TO INVESTIGATE THE CONDITION AND TREATMENT OF PRIS- 
ONERS OF WAR. — NOETHEEN PUBLICATIONS ON THIS SUBJECT. — EEFUTATION OF " EAW- 
HEAD-AND-BLOODY-BONES " STOEIES. — HUMANITY OF THE CONFEDEEATE AUTHOEITIES. — 
A TEERLBLE RECORD OF FEDERAL CRUELTIES. — BARBAROUS PUNISHMENT IN NORTHEBN 
PRISONS. — LAST HUMANE PROPOSITION OF COMMISSIONER OULD. — HIS LETTER TO GEN. 
GEANT. — X COMPLETE EECOED OF JUSTICE AND HUMANITY ON THE PAET OF THE CONFED- 
EEATE8. 

The exchange of prisoners taken during the war ; their treatment in 
their places of confinement !N"orth and South ; the incidents of the cartel, 
altogether, constitute so large and interesting a subject that we have re- 
served its treatment for a separate chapter. On the exposition of this in- 
tricate matter depends much of the good name of the Confederates and the 
contrary title of the enemy ; and it may be remarked that no subject which 
tended to keep alive a feeling of bitterness and animosity between the 



THE WOOL-OOBB NEGOTIATION. 017 

Northern and Southern people was more effective than recrimination about 
the cartel, and the alleged cruelty to prisoners of war on botli sides. The 
exposition we propose to make is mainly by a chain of records, extending 
through the war, thus best securing authenticity of statement, and con> 
bining these documents in a unity of narrative, so as to place before the 
reader a complete view and a severe analysis of the whole subject. 

In the first periods of the war, and with the prospect of its early termi- 
nation, but little account was taken of prisoners captured on either side. 
Indeed, some time elapsed at Washington before any lists were kept of 
these captures ; and after the first remarkable battle of the war, that of 
Manassas, in 1861, it was actually proposed (by Mr. Boyce of South Caro- 
lina), in the Provisional Congress at Richmond, to send back the Federal 
prisoners taken on that field without any formality whatever. The Foii; 
Donelson capture, however, appeared to have developed for the first time 
the value and interest of the exchange question, and was the occasion of 
remarkable perfidy on the part of the Washington authorities. 

Just previous to these important captm-es. Gen. Wool, on the Federal 
side, had declared, in a letter dated the 13th February, 1862 : " I am alone 
dothed with full power, for the purpose of arranging for the exchange of 
prisoners," and had invited a conference on the subject. Gen. Howell 
Cobb, on the part of the Confederacy, was appointed to negotiate with 
him ; and the two ofiicers decided upon a cartel by which prisoners taken 
on either side should be paroled within ten days after their capture, and 
delivered on the frontier of their own country. The only point of tenacious 
difference between them was as to a provision requiring each party to pay 
the expense of transporting their prisoners to the frontier ; and this point 
Gen. AVool promised to refer to the decision of his Government. At a 
second interview on the 1st March, Gen. Wool declared that his Govern- 
ment would not consent to pay these expenses ; when Gen. Cobb promptly 
gave up the point, leaving the cartel free from all of Gen. Wool's objec- 
tions, and just what he had proposed in his letter of the 13th February. 
Upon this. Gen. Wool informed Gen. Cobb that " his Government had 
changed his instructions," and abruptly broke off the negotiation. The 
occasion of this bad faith and dishonour on the part of the enemy was, 
that in the interval they had taken several thousand prisoners at Fort 
Donelson, which reversed the former state of things, and g^e them a sur- 
plus of prisoners, who, instead of being returned on parole, were carried 
into the interiour, and incarcerated with every circumstance of indignity. 

In the second year of the war a distinct understanding was obtained on 
the subject of the exchange of prisoners of war, and the following cartel 
was respectively signed and duly executed on the part of the two Govern- 
ments. This important instrument of war invites a close examination of 
the reader, and is copied in full : 



618 THE LOST CAtrSE. 



Haxall's Landing, on James Riteb, July 22, 1862. 

The undersigned, having been commissioned by tbe authorities they respectively 
represent, to make arrangements for a general exchange of prisoners of war, have agreed 
to the following articles : 

Article I. It is hereby agreed and stipulated, that all prisoners of war held by 
either party, including those taken on private armed vessels, known as privateers, shall 
be exchanged upon the conditions and terms following : 

Prisoners to be exchanged, man for man and officer for officer ; privateers to be placed 
upon the footing of officers and men of the navy. 

Men and officers of lower grades, may be exchanged for officers of a higher grade, 
and men and officers of different services may be exchanged according to the following 
scale of equivalents. 

A gencral-commanding-in-chief, or an admiral, shall be exchanged for officers of 
equal rank or for sixty privates or common seamen. 

A flag officer or major-general shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or for 
forty privates or common seamen, 

A commodore, carrying a broad pennant, or a brigadier-general shall be exchanged 
for officers of equal rank or twenty privates or common seamen. 

A captain in the navy or a colonel shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank oi 
for fifteen privates or common seamen. 

A lieutenant-colonel, or commander in the navy, shall be exchanged for officers of 
equal rank or for ten privates or common seamen. 

A lieutenant-commander or a major shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank 
or eight privates or common seamen. 

A lieutenant or a master in the navy or a captain in the army or marines shall be 
exchanged for officers of equal rank or six privates or common seamen. 

JMaster's mates in the navy, or lieutenants or ensigns in the army, shall be exchanged 
for officers of equal rank or four privates or common seamen. 

Midshipmen, warrant officers in the navy, masters of merchant vessels and command- 
ers of privateers, shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank or three privates or com- 
mon seamen ; second captains, lieutenants, or mates of merchant vessels or privateers, 
and all petty officers in the navy, and all non-commissioned officers in the army or 
marines, shall be severally exchanged for persons of equal rank or for two privates or 
common seamen ; and private soldiers or common seamen, shall be exchanged for each 
other, man for man. 

Article II. Local, State, civil, and militia rank held by persons not in actual mili- 
tary service, will not be recognized ; the basis of exchange being the grade actually held 
in the naval and military service of the respective parties. 

Article III. If citizens held by either party on charges of disloyalty for any alleged 
civil offence are exchanged, it shall only be for citizens. Captured sutlers, teamsters^ 
and all civilians in the actual service of either party to be exchanged for persons in 
similar position. 

Article IV. All prisoners of war to be discharged on parole in ten days after their 
capture, and the prisoners now held and those hereafter taken to be transported to the 
points mutually agreed upon, at the expense of the capturing party. The surplus pris- 
oners, not exchanged, shall not be permitted to take up arms again, nor to serve as 
military police, or constabulary force in any fort, garrison, or field work, held by either 
of the respective parties, nor as guards of prisoners, deposit, or stores, nor to discharga 
any duty usually performed by soldiers, until exchanged under the provisions of this 



THE CARTEL. 619 

cartel. The exchange is not to be considered complete until the oflScer or soldier ex- 
changed for has been actually restored to the lines to which he belongs. 

Akticle V. Each party, upon the discharge of prisoners of the other party, is au- 
thorized to discharge an equal number of their own oflScers or men from parole, furnish- 
ing at the same time to the other party a list of their prisoners discharged, and of their 
own officers and men relieved from parole ; thus enabling each party to relieve from 
parole such of their own officers and men as the party may choose. The lists thus mu- 
tually furnished will keep both parties advised of the true condition of the exchange of 
prisoners. 

Article VI. The stipulations and provisions above mentioned to be of binding 
obligation during the continuance of the war, it matters not which party may have the 
surplus of prisoners, the great principles involved being : 1st. An equitable exchange of 
prisoners, man for man, officer for officer, or officers of higher grade, exchanged for offi- 
cers of lower grade, or for privates, according to the scale of equivalents. 2d. That 
privates and officers and men of diflferent services may be exchanged according to the 
same scale of equivalents. 3d. That all prisoners, of whatever arm of service, are to be 
exchanged or paroled in ten days from the time of their capture, if it be practicable to 
transfer them to their own lines in that time ; if not, as soon thereafter as practicable. 
4th. That no officer, soldier, employee in service of either party is to be considered as 
exchanged and absolved from his parole until his equivalent has actually reached the 
lines of his friends. 5th. That the parole forbids the performance of field, garrison, 
police, or guard, or constabulary duty. 

JOHN A. DIX, Major- General 

D. H. HILL, Major- General, C. S. A. 



SUPPLEMENTARY ARTICLES. 

Article VII. All prisoners of war now held on either side, and all prisoners hereafter 
taken, shall be sent, with all reasonable despatch, to A. M. Aiken's, below Dutch Gap, 
on the James River, in Virginia, or to Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, in the State 
of Mississippi, and there exchanged or paroled until such exchange can be effected, no- 
tice being previously given by each party of the number of prisoners it will send, and 
the time when they will be delivered at those points respectively ; and in case the vicis- 
situdes of war shall change the military relations of the places designated in this article 
to the contending parties, so as to render the same inconvenient for the delivery and ex- 
change of prisoners, other places, bearing as nearly as may be the jjresent local relations 
of said places to the lines of said parties, shall be, by mutual agreement, substituted. 
But nothing in this article contained shall prevent the commanders of two opposing 
armies from exchanging prisoners, or releasing them on parole, at other points mutually 
agreed on by said commanders. 

Article VIH. For the purpose of carrying into effect the foregoing articles of 
agreement, each party will appoint two agents, to be called agents for the exchange of 
prisoners of war, whose duty it shall be to communicate with each other, by correspond- 
ence and otherwise ; to prepare the lists of prisoners ; to attend to the delivery of the 
prisoners at the places agreed on, and to carry out promptly, effectually, and in good 
faith, all the details and provisions of the said articles of agreement. 

Article ES. And in case any misunderstanding shall arise in regard to any clause 
or stipulation iii the foregoing articles, it is mutually agreed that such misunderstand- 



620 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Ing shall not interrupt the release of prisoners on parole, as herein provided, but shall be 
made the subject of friendly explanation, in order that the object of this agreement may 
neither be defeated nor posptoned. 

JOHN A. DIX, Major- General 

D. H. HILL, Major- General, C. 8. A. 

Mr. Ivobert Ould was appointed agent of the Confederacy under this 
important text of the war. He was eminently qnalified for the office. Ho 
was among the most accomplished jurists of the country ; he had one of 
the most vigorous intellects in the Confederacy ; he was a man of large 
humanity, dignified, and even lofty manners, and spotless personal honour. 
The record of his services in the cause of humanity and truth was one of 
the purest in either the public bm*eau or secret chamber of the Confederacy. 

It will be seen that the chief, if not the only purpose, of the instrument 
copied above was to secure the release of all prisoners of war. To that 
end the fourth article provided that all prisoners of war should be dis- 
charged on parole in ten days after their capture, and that the prisoners 
then held and those thereafter taken should be transported to the points 
mutually agreed upon, at the expense of the capturing party. The sixth 
article also stipulated that " all prisoners of whatever arm of service are 
to be exchanged or paroled in ten days from the time of their capture, if 
it be practicable to transfer tliem to their own lines in that time ; if not, 
as soon thereafter as practicable." 

From the date of the cartel until July, 1863, the Confederate authori- 
ties held the excess of prisoners. During that interval deliveries were 
made as fast as the Federal Government furnished transportation. Indeed, 
upon more than one occasion, Commissioner Ould urged the Federal au- 
thorities to send increased means of transportation. As ready as the ene- 
my always has been to bring false accusations against the Confederates, it 
has never been alleged that they failed or neglected to make prompt de- 
liveries of prisoners who were not under charges when they held the ex- 
cess. On the other hand, during the same time the cartel was openly and 
notoriously violated by the Federal authorities. Ofiicers and men were 
kept in cruel confinement, sometimes in irons or doomed to cells, without 
charge or trial. 

These facts were distinctly charged in the correspondence of Comrais- 
eioner Ould. On the 26th July, 1863, he addressed a letter to Lieut.-Coh 
Ludlow, then acting as agent of exchange on the Federal side, in which he 
used the following impressive and vigorous language in vindication of 
himself and his Government : " Now that our official connection is being 
terminated, I say to you in the fear of God — and I appeal to Him for the 
truth of the declaration — that there has been no single moment, from the 
time we were first brought together in connection with the matter of ex- 
change to the present hour, during which there has not been an open and 



VIOLATION OF THE CAETEL BY TUE NOETH. 621 

notorious violation of the cartel, by your authorities. Officers and men, 
numbering over hundreds, have been, during your whole connection with 
the cartel, kept in cruel confinement, sometimes in irons, or doomed to cells, 
without charges or trial. They are in prison now, unless God, in His 
mercy, has released them. In our parting moments, let me do you the 
justice to say that I do not believe it is so much your fault as that of yoiu 
authorities. Nay, more, I believe your removal from your position has 
been owing to the personal efforts you have made for a faithful obser st- 
ance, not only of the cartel, but of humanity, in the conduct of the war. 

" Again and again have I importuned you to tell me of one officer or 
man now held in confinement by us, who was declared exchanged. You 
have, to those appeals, furnished one, Spencer Kellog. For him I have 
searched in vain. On the other hand, I appeal to your own records for 
the cases where your reports have shown that our officers and men have 
been held for long months and even years in violation of the cartel and 
our agreements. The last phase of the enormity, however, exceeds all 
others. Although you have many thousands of our soldiers now in con 
finement in your prisons, and especially in that horrible hold of death, 
Fort Delaware, you have not, for several weeks, sent us any prisoners 
During those weeks you have despatched Capt. Mulford with the steamei 
New York to City Point, three or four times, without any prisoners. Foi 
the first two or three times some sort of an excuse was attempted. None 
is given at this present arrival. I do not mean to be ofi'ensive when I say 
that efirontery could not give one. I ask you with no purpose of disre- 
spect, what can you think of this covert attempt to secure the delivery of 
all your prisoners in our hands, without the release of those of ours who 
are languishing in hopeless misery in your prisons and dungeons ? " 

It is a fact beyond all controversy that officers and soldiers of the Con 
federacy entitled to deliveiy and exchange, were kept in confinement, in 
defiance of the cartel, some under charges, and some without. Many of 
these officers and soldiers were in confinement at the time of the adoption 
of the cartel, and continued to be so kept for months and years afterwards. 
In a few instances Commissioner Ould succeeded by persistent pressure in 
securing their release. In other cases, when from returned prisoners he 
would learn their place of confinement, and state it to the Federal agent, 
there would either be a denial of the fact that the party was confined 
tliere, or he would be removed to some other prison. Many of these pris- 
oners were actually declared exchanged by the Federal Agent of Ex- 
change, but yet still kept in prison, and all the others were entitled to de- 
livery for exchange under the terms of the cartel. 

To the serious allegation of a retention of prisoners in spite of the cartel 
and all the obligations of good faith, the Federal Government never at- 
tempted anything but a paltry counter-charge of the weakest and most 



622 THE LOST CAUSE. 

disingenuous kind. During the period before mentioned the only com- 
plaints made by the Federal authorities of any breach of tht cartel, were 
in the cases of such officers as were retained in consequence of President 
Davis' several proclamations, and in the case of Gen. Streight and Im 
officers. In looking back over the prison records of the Confederacy, the 
author can find no instance of any officers or men who were kept in pris- 
on after the date of the cartel under the proclamations of Mr. Davis. In 
point of fact, nothing was ever done under them. 'No inquiry was ever 
made whether the prisoners led negro troops or not. Streight's men were 
detained for several months. The reasons for their detention were fully 
given. In a letter written by Commissioner Ould, August 1st, 1863, to 
Brig.-Gen. Meredith, he said : " In retaining Col. Streight and his com- 
mand, the Confederate authorities have not gone as far as those of the 
United States have claimed for themselves the right to go ever since the 
establishment of the cartel. You have claimed and exercised the right to 
retain officers and men indefinitely, not only upon charges actually pre- 
ferred, but upon mere suspicion. You have now in custody officers who 
were in confinement when the cartel was framed, and who have since been 
declared exchanged. Some of them have been tried, but most of them 
have languished in prison all the weary time without trial or charges. 
I stand prepared to prove these assertions. This course was pursued, too, 
in the face not only of notice, but of protest. Do you deny to us the right 
to detain officers and men for trial upon grave charges, while you claim 
the right to keep in confinement any who may be the object of your sus- 
picion or special enmity ? " 

Commissioner Ould also informed the Federal authorities, in 1863, that 
the charges against Streight and his command were not sustained, and that 
they were held as other prisoners. At the time, however, of this latter 
notification, other difficulties had supervened, which had almost entirely 
stopped exchanges. 

Up to July, 1863, the Confederates had a large excess of prisoners. 
The larger number had been released upon parole after capture. Such 
paroles had been without question respected by both jDarties, until about 
the middle of 1863, when they were to be declared to be void (except 
under very special circumstances) by General Orders at Washington. The 
true reason of those General Orders was that the Federals had no lists of 
paroled prisoners (released on capture) to be charged against the Confed- 
erates. The latter had paid ofi" all debts of that kind from their abundant 
stores. They, on the other hand, had many such lists which were unsatis- 
fied, being principally captures in Kentucky, Tennessee, etc. Such being 
the state of afi'airs, on the 8th of April, 1863, Commisssioner Ould was in- 
formed that " exchanges will be confined to such equivalents as are held in 
confinement on either side." In other words, as all the paroles held by 



THE EXCHANGE QUESTION. 62.T 

the Federals had been satisfied and paid for in equivalents, and as they 
then held none of such to be charged against the Confederates, they would 
no longer respect such as they held, and the latter must deliver men actu- 
ally in captivity for such as they would send. The Confederates then had 
the outstanding paroles, but the Federals had the majority of prisoners in 
hand. The efiect of all this would have been, after the Confederates had 
delivered all their prisoners, to leave a large balance of their people in 
prison, while they at the same time had in their possession the paroles of 
ten times as many prisoners as the enemy held in captivity. This arrange- 
ment Commissioner Ould refused with indignation. The officers and men, 
who gave the paroles referred to, were subsequently, in violation of their 
parole, and without being declared exchanged, ordered to duty, and 
served against the South. Thereupon, Commissioner Ould ofF-setted such 
paroles against similar paroles taken by our officers and men at Yicksburg, 
and declared a like number of the latter exchanged. That was the only 
way he had of " getting even " with the enemy ; and no one can say that 
the way was not fair and honourable. 

From this time the provision of the cartel, that all prisoners, where 
practicable, were to be delivered within ten days was practically nullified, 
and was not respected during the remainder of the war. Such deliveries 
as were made afterwards, were in consequence of special agreements. The 
most strenuous effi^rts were made by Commissioner Ould to remedy this 
distressing state of things. The Confederate authorities only claimed that 
the provisions of the cartel should be fulfilled. They only asked the ene- 
my to do what, without any hesitation, they had done during the first year 
of the operation of the cartel. Seeing a persistent purpose on the part of 
the Federal Government to violate its own agreement, the Confederate au- 
thorities, moved ly the sufferings of the men in the prisons of each helligerent, 
determined to abate their fair demands, and accordingly, on the 10th of 
August, 1864, Commissioner Ould addressed the following communication 
to Major John E. Mulford, Assistant Agent of Exchange : 

Richmond, Va., Augrust 10th, 1864. 

MoQ. John E. Mulford^ Asst. Agent of Exchange : 

Sir : You have several times proposed to me to exchange the prisoners respectively 
held by the two belligerents, officer for officer, and man for man. The same offer has 
also been made by other officials having charge of matters connected with the exchange 
Df prisoners. This proposal has heretofore been declined, by the Confederate authorities, 
they insisting upon the terms of the cartel, which required the delivery of the excess on 
either side upon parole. In view, however, of the very large number of prisoners now 
held by each party, and the suffering consequent upon their continued confinement, 
I now consent to the above proposal and agree to deliver to you the prisoners held in 
captivity by the Confederate authorities, provided you agree to deliver an equal number 
of Confederate officers and men. As equal nximbers are delivered from time to time, 
they will be declared exchanged. This proposal is made with the understanding that the 



624: THE LOST CAUSE. 

officers and men on both sides, who have been longest in captivity, will be first delivered^ 
where it is practicable. I shall be happy to hear from you as speedily as possible, 
whether this arrangement can be carried out. 

Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

R. OULD, Agent of Exchange. 

The delivery of this letter was accompanied with a statement of tli2 
mortality which was hmrying so many Federal prisoners, at Anderson ville 
to the grave. 

On the 20th of the same month Major Mulford returned with the flag 
of truce steamer, but brought no answer to the letter of the 10th of August. 
In conversation with him. Commissioner Ould asked if he had any reply to 
make to the communication, and his answer was that he was not author- 
ized to make any. So deep was the solicitude which Commissioner Ould 
felt in the fate of the captives in Northern prisons, that he determined to 
make another effort. In order to obviate any objection which technicality 
might raise as to the person to whom his communication was addressed, 
he wrote to Maj.-Gen. E. A. Hitchcock, the Federal Commissioner of 
Exchange, residing in Washington city, the following letter, and delivered 
the same to Major Mulford on the day of its date. Accompanying that 
letter was a copy of the communication which he had addressed to Major 
Mulford on the 10th of August : 

Richmond, August 22, 1864. 

Mc^.- Gen. E. A. Hitchcock, U. 8. Commissioner of Exchange : 

Sir : Enclosed is a copy of a commimication which, on the 10th inst., I addressed 
and delivered to Major Jno. E. Mulford, Assistant Agent of Exchange. Under the cir- 
cumstances of the case, I deem it proper to forward this paper to you, in order that you 
may fully understand the position which is taken by the Confederate authorities. I shall 
be glad if the proposition therein made is accepted by your Government. 

Respectfully your obedient servant, 

Ro. OuiiD, Agent of Exchange. 

On the afternoon of the 30th August, Commissioner Ould was notified 
that the flag of truce steamer had again appeared at Varina. On the fol- 
lowing day he sent to Maj. Mulford the following note : 

Richmond, August 31, 1861. 

Ma^. John E. Mulford, Assistant Agent of Exchange : 

Sm : On the 10th of this month I addressed you a communication, to which I have 
received no answer. On the 22d inst. I also addressed a commimication to Maj.-Gen. 
E. A. Hitchcock, U. S. Commissioner of Exchange, enclosing a copy of my letter to you 
of the 10th inst. I now respectfully ask you to state in writing whether you have any 
reply to either of said communications ; and if not, whether you have any reason to 
give why no reply has been made ? 

Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Ro. Ould, Agent of Exchange. 



STOKIES OF " EEBEL EAEBARITIES." 625 

In a short time Commissioner Ould received the Ibllowinoc re- 
Bj^onse : 



Flao of TnucB Steamer, "New Yohk.' 
Varina, Va., August 31, 1864. 



... . ;;:i 

Hon. R. Ould, Agent of EdSiange . 

Sir : I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your favour of to-day, request 
ing answer, etc., to your communication of the 10th inst., on the question of the ex 
change of prisoners. To which, in rejjly, I wouhl say, I have no communication on the 
subject from our authorities, nor am I yet authorized to make answer, 

I am, sir, very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 
John E. Mulford, AssH Agent of Exchange. 

This was the whole Federal reply to the liumane proposition of the 
Confederacy — this the brief indication of their crnel pnrpose to let their 
prisoners rot and die in insufficient prisons, merely for the pnrpose of 
pointing a libel and colouring a story against the Southern Confederacy. 
The offer of Commissioner Ould was on the extreme of generosity. He 
proi)Oscd, when the enemy had a large excess of prisoners, to exchange 
officer for officer and man for man. This arrangement would have left tiiu 
surplus in the enemy's hands. But the liberal offer, which would have 
instantly restored to life and fi-cedom thousands of suffering captives, 
was never even heeded at Washington ; it was brutally calculated there 
that such a delivery from the prison pens of Andersonville and elsewhere 
would put so many thousand Confederate muskets in the field, and cut off' 
a chapter of horrours, from which it had been convenient to draw texts on 
the subject of " rebel barbarities." To keep that text before the world was 
tiie determined pnrpose at Washington. It had again and again been an- 
nounced that the subsistence of the Confederacy had fallen so Iom' — chiefly 
through the warfare of the enemy making it a jioint to destroy in all parts 
of the country supplies of every kind — that its own soldiers were compelled 
to subsist npon a third of a pound of meat and a pound of coarse corn meal 
or flour every day. With such reduced rations. Confederate soldiers them- 
selves were often exposed with thin and tattered clothes to the freezing 
winter storms, without tents, overcoats, blankets or shoes. In these cir- 
cumstances it was impossible to provide properly for many tens of thou- 
sands of prisoners at Andersonville, Salisbury, and other places south of 
liichmond, where crowded quarters, prepared only for smaller numbers, 
and freqnent removals to prevent recapture, added to the discomfort of the 
prisoners, and swelled the list of mortality. The authorities at Washing- 
ton refused to do their own part to relieve the sufferings of these unhappy 
men, and deliberately decreed the extension of their sufferings that they 
might pnt before the world false and plausible proofs of " rebel barbarity." 

It is simply in opposition to all that is known of Southern generosity 
in the war to believe that the sufferings of Andersonville were the result 
40 



626 THE LOST CAUSE. 

of neglect, still less of design on the part of the Confederate Government. 
A single train of acts is not likely to be so opposed to the whole career and 
consistent character of a people in a fonr years' war. The site of the prison 
at Andersonville — a point on the Sonthwestern railway in Georgia had 
been selected under an official order having reference to the following 
points : " A healthy locality, plenty of pure good water, a running stream, 
and, if possible, shade trees, and in the immediate neighbourhood of grist 
and saw mills." The pressure was so great at Richmond, and the supplies 
so scant, that prisoners were sent forward while the stockade was only 
about half finisliecl. When the first instalment of prisoners arrived, there 
was no guard at Andersonville, and the little squad which had charge of 
them in the cars had to remain ; and at no time did the guard, efficient and 
on duty, exceed fifteen hundred, to man the stockade, to guard, and do 
general duty, and aflbrd relief and enforce discipline over thirty-four thou- 
sand prisoners. 

In regard to the sufferings and mortality among the prisoners at An- 
dersonville, none of it arose from the unhealthiness of the locality. The 
food, though the same as that used by the Confederate soldiers, the bread, 
too, being corn, was different from that to which they had been accustomed, 
did not agi'ee with them, and scurvy and diarrhoea prevailed to a consider- 
able extent ; neither disease, however, w^as the result of starvation. That 
some prisoners did not get their allowance, although a full si.pply was sent 
in, is true. But there not being a guard sufficient to attend to distribution, 
Federal prisoners were appointed, each having a certain number allotted 
to his charge, among whom it was his duty to see that every man got his 
portion, and, as an inducement, this prisoner had especial favours and ad- 
vantages ; upon complaint by those under him, he was broke and another 
selected ; so that it only required good faith on the part of these head men, 
thus appointed, to insure to each man his share. But prisoners would often 
sell their rations for whiskey and tobacco, and would sell the clothes 
from their backs for either of them. 

In regard to sanitary regulations, there were certain prescribed places 
and modes for the reception of all filth, and a sluice was made to carry it 
off; but the most abominable disregard was manifested of all sanitary 
regulations, and to such a degree that if a conspiracy had been entered into 
by a large number of the prisoners to cause the utmost filth and stench, 
it could not have accomplished a more disgusting result. Besides which 
there was a large number of atrocious villains, whose outrages in robbing, 
beating and murdering their fellow-prisoners must have been the cause, 
directly or remotely, of very many deaths and of an inconceivable amount 
of suffering. We must recollect that among thirty-four thousand prison- 
ers, who had encountered the hardships of the fields of many battles, and 
had had w^ounds, there were many of delicate physique — many of respect- 



TUE ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 627 

ability, to whom such fellowship, such self-created filth, and such atrocious 
ruffianism, would of itself cause desjiondency, disease, and death ; and 
when, in addition to this, was the conviction that the Federal War De- 
partment, perfectly cognizant of all this, liad deliberately consigned 
them indefinitely to this condition, a consuming despair was superadded 
to all their other sufferings. 

The merits of Andersonville may be summed up by saying that it was 
of unquestioned healthfulness ; it was large enough and had water enough, 
and could have been made tolerable for the number originally intended 
for it. It appears that the increase of that number was apparently a mat- 
ter of necessity for the time ; that other sites were selected and prepared 
with all possible despatch ; that the provisions were similar in amount and 
quality to those used by Confederate soldiers ; that deficient means ren- 
dered a supply of clothing, tents, and medicines scanty ; that the rules of 
discipline and sanitary regulations of the prison, if complied with hy the 
prisoners^ would have secured to each a supply of food, and have averted 
almost, if not altogether, the filth and the ruffianism, which two causes 
outside of unavoidable sickness, caused the great mass of suffermg and 
mortality. 

But the history of the extraordinary efforts of the Confederate authori- 
ties to relieve the sufferings of Andersonville, through some resumption of 
exchanges, does not end with the proposition referred to as made by Com- 
missioner Ould to exchange man for man, and leave the surplus at the 
disposition of the enemy. It was follow^ed by another more liberal and 
more extraordinary proposition. Acting under the direct instructions of 
the Secretary of War, and seeing plainly that there was no hope of any 
general or extended partial system of exchange, Commissioner Ould, in 
August, 1864, offered to the Federal agent of exchange. Gen. Mulford, to 
deliver to him all the sick and wounded Federal prisoners we had, without 
insisting upon the delive'^'y of an equivalent numher of our prisoners in 
return. He also informed Gen. Mulford of the terrible mortality among 
the Federal prisoners, urging him to be swift in sending transportation to 
the mouth of the Savannah River for the purpose of taking them away. 
The offer of Commissioner Ould included all the sick and wounded at 
Andersonville and other Confederate prisons, lie further informed Gen. 
J\[ulford, in order to make his Government safe in sending transportation, 
that if the sick and wounded did not amount to ten or fifteen thousand 
men, the Confederate authorities Avould make up that number in well men. 
This offer, it will be recollected, was made early in August, 1864. Gen. 
Mulford informed Commissioner Ould it was directly communicated to his 
Government, yet no timely advantage was ever taken of it. 

This interesting and important fact is for the first time authoritatively 
published in these pages. It contains volumes of significance. The ques- 



628 THE LOST CA.USE. 

, tion occurs, who was responsible for the sufferings of the sick and wounded 
and prisoners at Andersonville, from August to December, 186i ? The 
world will ask with amazement, if it was possible that thousands of pris- 
oners were left to die in inadequate places of confinement, merely to mako 
a case against the 8outh — merely for romance ! The single fact gives the 
clue to the whole story of the deception and inhuman cruelty of the au- 
thorities at Washington with reference to their prisoners of war — the key 
to a chapter of hojTours that even the hardy hand of History shakes to 
unlock. To blacken the reputation of an honourable enemy ; to make a 
false appeal to the sensibilities of the world ; to gratify an inhuman re- 
venge, Mr. Stanton, the saturnine and malignant Secretary of War at Wash- 
ington, did not hesitate to doom to death thousands of his countrymen, and 
then to smear their sentinels with accusing blood. 

It was the j)urpose of Commissioiier Ould to keep open the offer he 
had made, and deliver to the Federal authorities all their sick and wounded, 
from time to time, especially if the straits of war should deny the Confed- 
erates the means of providing for their comfort. To show how honest and 
earnest he was in his offer to Mulford, when the transportation did arrive, 
he did deliver to him at Savannah and Charleston thirteen thousand men, 
large numbers of wdiom were well, and was ready to deliver as many as 
his transportation could accommodate, and that too under the difficulties 
and pressure of Sherman's invasion of Georgia, when nothing but tempo- 
rary shiftings were our expedients. 

The transfer of the entire matter of the exchange of prisoners from the 
control of Secretary Stanton, who had been averse to all arguments of 
justice, and to all appeals on this subject, to that of Gen. Grant, offered 
to Commissioner Ould another oportunity to essay an effort of humanity. 
On the 11th February, 1865, he proposed to Gen. Grant, to deliver with- 
out delay all the prisoners on hand, upon receiving an assurance from him 
that he would deliver an equal number of Confederate prisoners, within a 
reasonable time. This was accepted, and every energy was used to send 
immediately through Wilmington, James Kiver, and other practicable 
ways, all the prisoners we had. This was very speedily consummated, so 
far as all in prisons in Yirginia, and ISTorth and South Carolina, were con- 
cerned. The presence of the enemy, and the cutting of our communica- 
tions, only prevented the immediate execution elsei^here. Orders to that 
efiect, and messengers to secure it, were sent to Georgia, Alabama, and 
the Trans-Mississippi. A return number of prlsonei's, to the amount of 
about five thousand per week, were sent to E'chmond, until the fortunes 
of w\ar closed all operations, even down to the matter of an adjustment of 
accounts. The adjustment has never been made. 

The general subject of the condition and treatment of prisoners, on both 
Bides, in the war, is involved in much we have already written of the 



CONT'EDERATE KEPOKT ON PKISONS. 629 

history of the exchange question. But in order to make a proper case for 
posterity on a special and deeply interesting topic, Commissioner Ould 
urged and succeeded in raising a joint Congressional Committee at Rich- 
mond, to take the testimony of returned prisoners as to their treatment by 
the enemy. That Committee was raised, and a large mass of testimony 
was taken, which was unfortunately lost by fire. This Committee, how- 
ever, made a report in February, 18G5, a copy of which was preserved. 
It is a document which should be road with care ; the space it occupies 
could scarcely be tilled with a narrative more just and condensed ; and 
we therefore annex it, in full : 



EEPORT OF THE JOINT SELECT COJIMITTEE OF THE COXFEDERATE COX'GRESS, APPOES'TBIJ 
TO IXVESTIGATE THE COXDITIOX AXD TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF "WAR. 

The duties assigned to the committee under the several resolutions of Congress des- 
ignating tliem, are " to investigate an:l re2)ort upon the condition and treatment of the 
prisoners of war respectively held by the Confederate and United States Governments 
upon the causes of their detention, and the refusal to exchange ; and also upon the vio- 
lations by the enemy of the rules of civilized warfare in the conduct of the war." These 
subjects are broad in extent and importance ; and in order fully to investigate and pre- 
sent them, the committee propose to continue their labours in obtaining evidence, and 
deducing from it a truthful report of facts illustrative of the spiiit in which the war baa 
been conducted. 

But we deem it proper at this time to make a preliminary report, founded upon evi- 
dence recently taken, relating to the treatment of prisoners of war by both belligerents. 
This report is rendered especially important, by reason of persistent efforts lately made 
by the Government of the United States, and by associations and individuals connected 
or co-operating with it, to asperse the honour of the Confederate authorities, and to 
charge them with, deliberate and wilful cruelty to jirisoners of war. Two publications 
have been issued at the North within the past year, and liave been circulated not only 
m tlie United States, but in some parts of the South, and in Europe. One of these is 
the report of the joint select committee of the Northern Congress on the conduct of the 
war, known as " Report No. 67." The other purports to be a " Narrative of the priva- 
tions and sufferings of United States officers and soldiers while prisoners of war," and is 
issued as a report of a commission of enquiry appointed by " The United States Sani- 
tary Commission." 

This body is alleged to consist of Valentine Mott, M. D., Edward Delafield, M. D., 
Gouverneur Morris Wilkins, Esq., Ellerslie Wallace, M. D., Hon. J. J. Clarke Hare, and 
Rev. Treadwell Walden. Although these persons arc not of sufficient public importance 
and weight to give authority to their publication, yet your committee have deemed it 
proper to notice it in connectioii with the " Report No. 67," before mentioned, because 
the Sanitary Commission has been understood to have acted to a greater extent under 
the control and by the authority of the United States Government, and because their 
report claims to be founded on evidence taken in solemn form. 

A candid reader of these publications will not fail to discover that, whether the 
statements they make be true or not, their spirit is not adapted to jjromote a better fee] 
ing between the hostile powers. They are not intended for the humane purpose of 



630 THE LOST CAUSE. 

ameliorating the condition of the unhappy prisoners held in captivity. They are de- 
signed to inflame the evil passions of the North ; to keep up the war spirit among their 
own people ; to represent the South as acting under the dominion of a spirit of cruelty, 
inhumanity, and interested malice, and thus to vilify her people in the eyes of all on 
whom these publications can work. They are justly characterized hy the Hon. James 
M. Mason as belonging to that class of literature called the " sensational " — a style of 
writing j)revalent for many years at the North, and which, beginning with the writers 
of newspaper narratives and cheap fiction, has gradually extended itself, until it is now 
the favoured mode adopted by medical professors, judges of courts, and reverend clergy- 
men, and is even chosen as the proper style for a report by a committee of their Congress. 

Nothing can better illustrate the truth of this view than the " Report No. 67," and 
its appendages. It is accompanied by eight pictures, or photographs, alleged to 
represent United States prisoners of war, returned from Richmond, in a sad state of 
emaciation and suffering. Concerning these cases, your committee will have other re- 
marks, to be presently submitted. They are only alluded to now to show that this re- 
port does really belong to the " sensational " class of literature, and that, prima facie, 
it is open to the same criticism to which the yellow-covered novels, the " narratives of 
noted highwaymen," and the " awful beacons " of the Northern book-stalls should be 
subjected. 

The intent and spirit of this report may be gathered from the following extract : 
" The evidence proves, beyond all manner of doubt, a determination on the part of the 
rebel authorities, deliberately and persistently practised, for a long time past, to subject 
those of our soldiers who have been so unfortunate as to fall into their hands, to a sys- 
tem of treatment which has resulted in reducing many of those who have survived and 
been permitted to return to us, to a condition, both physically and mentally, which no 
language we can. use, can adequately describe." — Report, p; 1. Ana they give also a 
letter from Edwin M. Stanton, the Northern Secretary of War, from which the following 
is an extract : " The enormity of the crime committed by the rebels towards our prison- 
ers for the last several months is not known or realized by our people, and cannot but 
fill with horrour the civilized world, when the facts are fully revealed. There appears 
to have been a deliberate system of savage and barbarous treatment and starvation, the 
result of wliich will be that few (if any) of the prisoners that have been in their hand? 
during the jjast winter, will ever again be in a condition to render any service or even 
to enjoy life." — Report, p. 4. And the Sanitary Commission, in their pamphlet, aftej 
picturing many scenes of privations and suffering, and bringing many charges of cruelty 
against the Confederate authorities, declare as follows : — " The conclusion is unavoid- 
able, therefore, that these privations and sufferings have been designedly inflicted by the 
military and other authorities of the rebel Goverment, and could not have been due to 
causes which such authorities could not control." — p. 95. 

After examining these publications, your committee approached the subject with an 
earnest desire to ascertain the truth. If their investigation should result in ascertaining 
that these charges (or any of them) were true, the committee desired, as far as might ba 
in their power, and as far as they could influence the Congress, to remove the evils com- 
l^lained of, and to conform to the most humane spirit of civilization : and if these charges 
were unfounded and false, they deemed it as a sacred duty, without delay, to present to 
the Confederate Congress and people, and to the public eye of the enlightened world, a 
vindication of their country, and to relieve her authorities from the injurious slanders 
brought against her by her enemies. With these views, we have taken a considerable 
amount of testimony bearing on the subject. We have sought to obtain witnesses Avhose 
position or duties made them familiar with the facts testified to, and whose charactrm 



CONFEDERATE EEPOKT ON PRISONS. 631 

entitled them to fall credit. We have not hesitated to examine Northern prisoners of 
war upon points and experience specially within their knowledge. We now present the 
testimony taken by us, and submit a report of facts and inferences fairly deducil)le from 
the evidence, from the admissions of our enemies, and from public records of undoubted 
authority. 

First in order, your committee will notice the charge contained both in " Report 
No. G7," and in the " sanitary " publication, founded on the appearance and condition 
of the sick prisoners sent from Richmond to Annapolis and Baltimore about the last of 
April, 1864. These are the men, some of whom form the subjects of the photographa 
with which the United States Congressional Committee have adorned their report. The 
disingenuous attempt is made in both these publications to produce the impression that 
these sick and emaciated men were fair representatives of the general state of the pris- 
oners held by the South, and that all their prisoners were being rapidly reduced to the 
same state by starvation and cruelty, and by neglect, ill treatment, and denial of proper 
food, stimulants, and medicines in the Confederate hospitals. Your committee take 
pleasure in saying that not only is this charge proved to be wholly false, but the evi- 
dence ascertains facts as to the Confederate hospitals in which Northern prisoners of war 
are treated, highly creditable to the authorities which established them, and to the sur- 
geons and their aids who have so humanely conducted them. The facts are simply 
these : 

The Federal authorities, in violation of the cartel, having for a long time refused 
exchange of prisoners, finally consented to a partial exchange of the sick and wounded 
on both sides. Accordingly, a number of such prisoners were sent from the hospitals iu 
Richmond. General directions had been given that none should be sent except those 
who might be expected to endure the removal and passage with safety to their lives ; 
but in some cases the surgeons were induced to depart from this rule, by the entreaties 
of some officers and men in the last stages of emaciation, suffering not only with exces- 
sive debility, but with " nostalgia," or home-sickness, whose cases were regarded as 
desperate, and who could not live if they remained, and might possibly improve if car- 
ried home. Thus it happened that some very sick and emaciated men were carried to 
Annapolis, but their illness was not the result of ill treatment or neglect. Such cases 
might be found in any large hosjjital, North or South. They might even be found in 
private families, where the sufferer would be surrounded by every comfort that love 
could bestow. Yet these are the cases which, with hideous violation of decency, the 
Northern committee have paraded in pictures and photographs. They have taken their 
own sick and enfeebled soldiers, have stripped them naked ; have exposed them before 
a daguerreian apparatus ; have pictured every shrunken limb and muscle — and all for the 
purpose, not of relieving their sufferings, but of bringing a false and slanderous charge 
against the South. 

The evidence is overwhelming that the illness of these [Federal] prisoners was not 
the result of ill treatment or neglect. The testimony of Surgeons Semple and Spence, 
of Assistant Surgeons Tinsley, Marriott, and Miller, and of the Federal prisoners, E. P 
Dalrymple, George Henry Brown, and Freeman B. Teague, ascertains this to the satisfac- 
tion of every candid mind. But in refuting this charge, your committee are compelled, 
by the evidence, to bring a counter-charge against the Northern authorities, which they 
fear will not be so easily refuted. In exchange, a number of Confederate sick and 
wounded prisoners have been at various times delivered at Richmond and at Savannah. 
The mortality among these on the passage and their condition when delivered, were sc 
deplorable as to justify the charge that they had been treated with inhuman neglect by 
the Northern authorities. 



632 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Assistant Surgeon Tinsley testifies : "I liave seen many of our jDnsoners returned 
from tlae North, who were nothing but skin and bones. They were as emaciated as a 
man could be to retain life, and the photographs (appended to ' Rejjort No. 67,') would 
not be exaggerated reiDresentations of our returned prisoners to whom I thus allude. 
[ saw t\yo hundred and fifty of our sick brought in on litters from the steamer at 
Rockett's. Thirteen dead bodies were brought ofl" the steamer the same night. At least 
thirty died in one night after they were received." 

Surgeon Spence testifies : " I was at Savannah, and saw rather over three thousanc 
prisoners received. The list showed that a large number had died on the passage from 
Baltimore to Savannah. The number sent from the Federal prisons was three thousand 
five hundred, and out of that number they delivered only three thousand and twenty- 
eight, to the best of my recollection. Capt. Hatch can give you the exact number. 
Thus, about four hundred and seventy-two died on the passage. I was told that sixty- 
seven dead bodies had been taken from one train of cars between Elmira and Baltimore. 
After being received at Savannah, they had the best attention jjossible, yet many died 
in a few days." " In carrrying out the exchange of disabled, sick, and wounded men, 
we delivered at Savannah and Charleston about eleven thousand Federal prisoners, and 
their physical condition compared most favourably with those we received in exchange, 
although of course the worst cases among the Confederates had been removed by death 
during the passage." 

Richard H. Dibrell, a merchant of Richmond, and a member of the " ambulance com- 
mittee," whose labors in mitigating the sufferings of the wounded have been acknowl- 
edged both by Confederate and Northern men, thus testifies concerning our sick and 
wounded soldiers at Savannah, returned from Northern prisons and hospitals : " I have 
never seen a set of men in worse condition. They were so enfeebled and emaciated that 
we lifted them like little children. Many of them were like living skeletons. Indeed, 
there was one poor boy, about seventeen years old, who presented the most distressing 
and deplorable appearance I ever saw. He was nothing but skin and bone, and besides 
this, he was literally eaten up with vermin. He died in the hospital in a few days after 
being removed thither, notwithstanding the kindest treatment and the use of the most 
judicious nourishment. Our men were in so reduced a condition, that on more than 
one trip up on the short passage of ten miles from the transports to the city, as many as 
five died. The clothing of the privates was in a wretched state of tatters and filth." 
" The mortality on the passage from Maryland was very great, as well as that on the 
passage from the prisons to the port from which they started. I cannot state the exact 
number, but I think I heard that three thousand five hundred were started, and we only 
received about three thousand and twenty-seven." I have looked at the photographs 
appended to ' Report No. 67 ' of the committee of the Federal Congress, and do not hesi- 
tate to declare that several of our men were worse cases of emaciation and sickness than 
any represented in these photographs." 

The testimony of Mr. Dibrell is confirmed by that of Andrew Johnston, also a mer- 
chant of Richmond, and a member of the " ambulance committee." 

Thus it appears that the sick and wounded Federal j^risoners at Annapolis whose 
condition has been made a subject of outcry and of widespread complaint by the North- 
ern Congress, were not in a worse state than were the Confederate prisoners returned 
from Northern hospitals and prisons of which the humanity and superiour management 
are made subjects of special boasting by the United States Sanitary Commission ! 

In connection with this subject, your committee take jjleasure in reporting the facta 
ascertained by their investigations concerning the Confederate hospitals for sick and 
wounded Federal prisoners. They have made personal examination, and have taken evi- 



CONFEDERATE KEPORT ON PRISONS. G33 

dence specially in relation to " Hospital No. 21," in Richmond, because this lias been made 
subject of distinct charge in the publication last mentioned. It has been shown, not only 
by the evidence of the surgeons and their assistants, but by that of Federal prisoners, 
that the treatment of the Northern prisoners in these hospitals has been everything that 
humanity could dictate ; that their wards have been well ventilated and clean ; their 
food the best that could be procured for them — and in fact, that no distinction had been 
made between their treatment and that of our own sick and wounded men. Moreover, 
it is proved that it has been the constant practice to supply to the patients, out of the 
hospital funds, sucli articles as milk, butter, eggs, tea, and other delicacies, when they 
were required by the condition of the patients. This is proved by the testimony of 
E. P. Dalrymple, of New York, George Henry Brown, of Pennsylvania, and Freeman B 
Teague, of New Hampehire, whose depositions accompany this report. 

This humane and considerate usage was not adojated in the United States hospital on 
Johnson's Island, where Confederate sick and wounded officers were treated. Col. J. H. 
Holman thus testifies : " The Federal authorities did not furnish to the sick prisoners 
the nutriment and other articles which were jirescribed by their own surgeons. All 
they would do was to permit the prisoners to buy the nutriment or stimulants needed ; 
and if they bad no money, they could not get them. I know this, for I was in the hos- 
pital sick myself, and I had to buy, myself, such articles as eggs, milk, flour, chickens, 
and butter, after their doctors had prescribed them. And I know this was generally 
the case, for we had to get up a fund among ourselves for this purjDose, to aid those who 
were not well supplied with money." This statement is confirmed by the testimony of 
Acting- Assistant Surgeon John J. Miller, who was at Johnson's Island for more than 
eight months. When it is remembered that such articles as eggs, milk, and butter were 
Tcry scarce and high-priced in Richmond, and plentiful and cheap at the North, the 
contrast thus presented may well put to shame the " Sanitary Commission," and dissipate 
the self-complacency with which they have boasted of the superiour humanity in the 
Northern prisons and hosj^itals. 

Your committee now proceed to notice other charges in these publications. It is said 
that their prisoners were habitually strijiped of blankets and other property, on being 
captured. What pillage may have been committed on the battle-field, after the excite- 
ment of combat, your committee cannot know. But they feel well assured that such 
pillage was never encouraged by the Confederate' generals, and bore no comparison to 
the wholesale robbery and destruction to which the Federal armies have abandoned 
themselves, in possessing parts of our territory. It is certain that after the prisoners 
were brought to the Libby and other prisons in Richmond no such pillage was jiermit- 
ted. Only articles which came properly under the head of munitions of war, were taken 
from them. 

The next charge noticed is, that the guards around the Libby prison were in the 
habit of recklessly and inhumanly shooting at the prisoners, upon the most frivolous 
pretexts, and that the Confederate officers, so far from forbidding this, rather encouraged 
it, and made it a subject of sportive remark. This charge is wholly false and baseless. 
The " Rules and Regulations," appended to the deposition of Major Thomas P. Turner, 
expressly provide, " Nor shall any prisoner be fired ujjon by a sentinel or other person, 
except in case of revolt or attempted escape." Five or six cases have occurred in which 
prisoners have been fired on and killed or hurt ; but every case has been made the sub- 
ject of careful investigation and report, as will appear by the evidence. As a proper 
comment on this charge, your committee report that the practice of firing on our prison- 
ers by the guards in the Northern prisons appears to have been indulged in to a most 
tjrutal and atrocious extent. See the depositions of C. C. Ilerrington, Wm. F. Gordon, 



634: 



THE LOST CAUSE. 



Jr., J. B. McCreary, Dr. Thomas P. Holloway and John P. Fennell. At Fort Delaware, 
a cruel regulation as to the use of the " sinks," was made the pretext for firing on and 
murdering several of our men and officers— among them, Lieut.-Col. Jones, who waa 
lame, and was shot down by the sentinel while helpless and feeble, and while seeking to 
explain his condition. Yet this sentinel was not only not punished, but was promoted 
for his act. At Camp Douglas, as many as eighteen of our men are rejjorted to have 
been shot in a single month. These facts may well produce a conviction in the candid 
observer, that it is the North and not the South that is open to the charge of deliberate- 
ly and wilfully destroying the lives of the prisoners held by her. 

The next charge is, that the Libby and Belle Isle prisoners were habitually kept in a 
filthy condition, and that the officers and men confined there were prevented from keep- 
ing themselves sufficiently clean to avoid vermin and similar discomforts. The evidence 
clearly contradicts this charge. It is proved by the depositions of Maj. Turner, Lieut. 
Bossieux, Rev. Dr. McCabe, and others, that the prisons were kept constantly and syste- 
matically policed and cleansed ; that in the Libby there was an ample supply of water 
conducted to each floor by the city pipes, and that the prisoners were not only not re- 
stricted in its use, but urged to keep themselves clean. At Belle Isle, for a brief season 
(about three weeks), in consequence of a sudden increase in the number of prisoners, the 
police was interrupted, but it was soon restored, and ample means for washing, both 
themselves and their clothes, were at all times furnished to the prisoners. It is doubtless 
true, that notwithstanding these facilities, many of the prisoners were lousy and filthy ; 
but it was the result of their own habits, and not of neglect in the discipline or arrange- 
ments of the prison. Many of the prisoners were captured and brought in while in this 
condition. The Federal general, Neal Dow well expressed their character and habits. 
Wlien he came to distribute clothing among them, he was met by profane abuse, and 
he said to the Confederate officer in charge, " You have here the scrapings and Takings 
of Europe." That such men should be filthy in their habits might be expected. 

We next notice the charge that the boxes of provisions and clothing sent to the 
prisoners from the North, were not delivered to them, and were habitually robbed and 
plundered, by permission of the Confederate authorities. The evidence satisfies your 
committee that this charge is, in all substantial points, untrue. For a period of about 
one month there was a stojipage in the delivery of boxes, caused by a report that the 
Federal authorities were forbidding the delivery of similar supplies to our prisoners. 
But the boxes were put in a warehouse, and afterwards delivered. For some time no 
search was made of boxes from the " Sanitary Committee," intended for the prisoners' 
hospital. But a letter was intercepted, advising that money should be sent in these 
boxes, as they were never searched ; which money was to be used in bribing the guard, 
and thus releasing the prisonei's. After this, it was deemed necessary to search every 
box, which necessarily produced some delay. Your committee are satisfied that if these 
boxes or their contents were robbed, the prison officials are not responsible therefor. 
Beyond doubt, robberies were often committed by prisoners themselves, to whom the 
contents were delivered for distribution to their owners. Notwithstanding all this alleged 
pillage, the supplies seem to have been sufficient to keep the quarters of the prisons so 
well furnished that they frequently presented, in the language of a witness, " the ap- 
pearance of a large grocery store. 

In connection with this point, your committee refer to the testimony of a Federal 
officer. Col. James M. Sanderson, whose letter is annexed to the deposition of Major 
Turner. He testifies to the full delivery of the clothing and supplies from the North, 
and to the humanity and kindness of the Confederate officers — specially mentioning 
Lieut. Bossieux, commanding on Belle Isle. His letter was addressed to the President 



CONFEDEKATE KEPOKT ON PKISONS. 635 

of the United States Sanitary Commission, and was beyond doubt received by them, 
having been forwarded by the I'egular flag of truce. Yet the scrupulous and honest gen- 
tlemen composing that commission, have not found it convenient for their purposes to 
insert this letter in their publication I Had they been really searching for the truth, Ihia 
letter would have aided them in finding it. 

Your committee proceed next to notice the allegation that the Confederate authori- 
ties had i^repared a mine under the Libby prison, and placed in it a quantity of gunpow- 
der for the purpose of blowing up the buildings with their inmates, in case of an attempt 
to rescue them. After ascertaining all the facts bearing on this subject, your committee 
believe that what was done vmder the circumstances, will meet a verdict of approval 
from all whose prejudices do not blind them to the truth. The state of things was un- 
precedented in history, and must be judged of according to the motives at work, and 
the result accomplished. A large body of Northern raiders, under one Col. Dahlgren, 
was approaching Richmond. It was ascertained, by the reports of prisoners captured 
from them, and other evidence, that their design was to enter the city, to set fire to the 
buildings, public and private, for which purpose turpentine balls in great number had 
been prepared ; to murder the President of the Confederate States, and other prominent 
men ; to release the prisoners of war, then numbering five or six thousand ; to put arms 
into their hands, and to turn over the city to indiscriminate pillage, rajje, and slaughter. 
At the same time a plot was discovered among the prisoners to co-operate in this scheme, 
and a large number of knives and slung-shot (made by putting stones into woollen 
stockings) were detected in i)laces of concealment about their quarters. To defeat a 
plan so diabolical, assuredly the sternest means were justified. If it would have been 
right to put to death any one prisoner attempting to escape under such circumstances 
it seems logically certain that it would have been equally right to put to death any num- 
ber making such attempt. But in truth the means adopted were those of humanity and 
prevention, rather than of execution. The Confederate authorities felt able to meet and 
repulse Dahlgren and his raiders, if they could prevent the escape of the prisoners. 

The real object was to save their lives, as well as those of our citizens. The guard 
force at the prisons wa^ small, and all the local troops in and around Richmond were 
needed to meet the threatened attack. Had the prisoners escajjed, the women and chil- 
dren of the city, as well as their homes, would have been at the mercy of five thousand 
outlaws. Humanity required that the most summary measures should be used to deter 
them from any attempt at escape. 

A mine was prepared under the Libby prison ; a sufficient quantity of gunpowder 
w\as put into it, and pains were taken to inform the prisoners that any attempt at escape 
made by them would be effectually defeated. The plan succeeded perfectly. The pris- 
oners were awed and kept quiet. Dahlgren and his party were defeated and scattered. 
The danger passed away, and in a few weeks the gunpowder was removed. Such are 
the facts. Your committee do not hesitate to make them knowTi, feeling assured that 
the conscience of the enlightened world and the great law of self-preservation will justify 
all that was done by our country and her ofBcers. 

"We now proceed to notice, under one head, the last and gravest charge made in these 
publications. They assert that the Northern prisoners in the hands of the Confederate 
authorities have been starved, frozen, inhumanly punished, often confined in foul and 
loathsome quarters, deprived of fresh air and exercise, and neglected and maltreated in 
sickness — and that all this was done upon a deliberate, wilful, and long-conceived plan 
of the Confederate Government and officers, for the purpose of destroying the liv^'S of 
these prisoners, or of rendering them forever incapable of military service. This charge 
gccuses the Southern Government of a crime so horrible and unnatural that it could 



636 



THE LOST CAtrSE. 



never have been made except by those ready to blacken with slander men whom they 
have long injured and hated. Your committee feel bound to reply to it calmly but em- 
phatically. They pronounce it false in fact, and in design ; false in the basis on which 
it assumes to rest, and false in its estimate of the motives which have controlled the 
Southern authorities. 

At an early period in the present contest the Confederate Government recognized 
their obligation to treat prisoners of war with humanity and consideration. Before any 
laws were passed on the subject, the Executive Department provided such prisoners aa 
fell into their hands, with proper quarters and barracks to shelter them, and with ra- 
tions the same in quantity and quality as those furnished to the Confederate soldiers 
who guarded these prisoners. They also showed an earnest wish to mitigate the sad con- 
dition of prisoners of war, by a system of fair and prompt exchange — and the Confed- 
erate Congress co-operated in these humane views. By their act, approved on the„31st 
day of May, 1861, they provided that " all prisoners of war taken, whether on land or at 
sea, during the jDending hostilities with the United States, shall be transferred by the 
captors from time to time, and as often as convenient, to the Department of "War ; and 
it shall be the duty of the Secretary of War, with the approval of the President, to issue 
such instructions to the Quartermaster-General and his subordinates, as shall provide for 
the safe custody and sustenance of prisoners of war ; and the rations furnished prisoners 
of war shall be the same in quantity and quality as those furnished to enlisted men in 
the Army of the Confederacy." Such were the declared j)urpose and policy of the Con- 
federate Government towards prisoners of war — amid all the privations and losses to 
which their enemies have subjected them, they have sought to carry them into effect. 

Our investigations for this preliminary report have been confined chiefly to the ra- 
tions and treatment of the prisoners of war at the Libby and other prisons in Richmond 
and on Belle Isle. This we have done, because the publications to which we have al- 
luded chiefly refer to them, and because the " Report No. 67 " of the Northern Congress 
plainly intimates the belief that the treatment in and around Richmond was worse than 
it was farther South. That report says : " It will be observed from the testimony that 
all the witnesses who testify upon that point state that the treatment they received while 
confined at Columbia, South Carolina, Dalton, Georgia, and other places, was far more 
humane than that they received at Richmond, where the authorities of the so-called Con- 
federacy were congregated," Report, p. 3. 

The evidence proves that the rations furnished to prisoners of war in Richmond and 
on Belle Isle, have been never less than those furnished to the Confederate soldiers who 
guarded them, and have at some seasons been larger in quantity and better in quality 
than those furnished to Confederate troops in the field. This has been because, until 
February, 1884, the Quartermaster's Department furnished the prisoners, and often had 
provsions or funds, when the Commissary Department was not so well provided. Once 
and only once, for a few weeks, the prisoners were without meat, but a larger quantity 
of bread and vegetable food was in consequence supplied to them. How often the gal- 
lant men composing the Confederate Army, huve been without meat, for even longer 
intei^vals, your committee do not deem it necessary to say. Not less than sixteen ounces 
of bread and four ounces of bacon, or six ounces of beef, together with beans and soup, 
have been furnished per day to the prisoners. During most of the time the quantity of 
meat furnished to them has been greater than these amounts ; and even in times of the 
greatest scarcity, they have received as much as the Southern soldiers who guarded 
them. The scarcity of meat and of ):)readstuff'3 in the South, in certain places, has been 
the result of the savage policy of our enemies in burning barns filled with wheat or corn, 
destroying agricultural implements, and diiving oft" or wantonly butchering hogs and 



CONFEDERATE KEPOKT ON PKISONS. G37 

cattle. Tet amid all tliese privations, we have given to their prisoners the rations alcove 
mentioned. It is well known that this quantity of food is sufficient to keep in health a 
man who does not labour hard. All the learned disquisitions of Dr. Ellerslie Wallace 
on the subject of starvation, might have been spared, for they are all founded on a false 
basis. It will be observed that few (if any) of the witnesses examined by the " Sanitary 
Commission " speak with any accuracy of the quantity (in weight) of the food actually 
furnished to them. Their statements are merely conjectural and comjjarative, and can- 
not weigh against the positive testimony of those who superintended the delivery of 
large quantities of food, cooked and distributed according to a fixed ratio, for the num- 
ber of men to be fed. 

The statements of the " Sanitary Commission " as to prisoners freezing to death on 
Belle Isle, are absurdly false. According to that statement, it was common, during a 
cold spell in winter, to see several prisoners frozen to death every morning in the places 
in which they had slept. This picture, if correct, might well excite our horrour ; but 
unhappily for its sensational power, it is but a clumsy daub, founded on the fancy of the 
l^ainter. The facts are, that tents were furnished sufficient to shelter all the prisoners ; 
that the Confederate commandant and soldiers on the Island were lodged in similar 
tents ; that a fire was furnished in each of them ; that the prisoners fared as well as their 
guards ; and that only one of them was ever frozen to death, and he was frozen by the 
cruelty of his own fellow-prisoners, who thrust him out of the tent in a freezing night, 
because he was infested with vermin. The proof as to the healthiness of the prisoners on 
Belle Isle, and the small amount of mortality, is remarkable, and presents a fit comment 
on the lugubrious pictures drawn by the " Sanitary Commission," either from their own 
fancies, or from the fictions put forth by their false witnesses. Lieut. Bossieux proves 
that from the establishment of the prison camp on Belle Isle in June, 1863, to the 10th 
of February, 1865, more than twenty thousand prisoners had been at various times there 
received, and yet that the whole number of deaths during this time, was only one hun- 
dred and sixty-four. And this is confirmed by the Federal colonel, Sanderson, who 
states that the average number of deaths per month on Belle Isle, was " from two to 
five ; more frequently the lesser numbei"." The sick were promptly removed from the 
Island to the hospitals in the city. 

Doubtless the " Sanitary Commission " have been to some extent led astray by their 
own witnesses, whose character has been iDortrayed by Gen. Neal Dow, and also by the 
editor of the New York Times, who, in his issue of January 6th, 1865, describes the 
material for recruiting the Federal army as " wretched vagabonds, of depraved morals, 
decrepit in body, without courage, self-respect, or conscience. They are dirty, disor- 
derly, thievish, and incapable." 

In reviewing the charges of cruelty, harshness, and starvation to prisoners made by 
the North, your committee have taken testimony as to the treatment of our own officers 
and soldiers, in the hands of the enemy. It gives us no pleasure to be compelled to 
speak of the sufi'ering infficted upon our gallant men ; but the self-laudatory style in 
which the " Sanitary Commission " have spoken of their prisons, makes it proper that 
the truth should be presented. Your committee gladly acknowledge that in many 
cases our prisoners experienced kind and considerate treatment ; but we are equally as- 
sured that in nearly all the prison stations of the North — at Point Lookout, Fort 
McHenry, Fort Delaware, Johnson's Island, Elmira, Camp Chase, Camp Douglas, Alton, 
Camp Morton, the Ohio Penitentiary and the prisons of St. Louis, Missouri, om- men 
have suffered from insufficient food, and have been subjected to ignoniinious, cruel, and 
barbarous practices, of which there is no parallel in anything that has occurred in the 
South. The witnesses who were at Point Lookout, Fort Delaware. Camp Morton and 



638 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Camp Douglas, testify that they have often seen our men picking up the scraps and 
refuse thrown out from the kitchens, with which to appease their hunger. Dr. Herrin g- 
ton proves that at Fort Delaware unwholesome bread and water f)roduced diarrhoea in 
numberless cases among our prisoners, and that " their sufferings were greatly aggra* 
vated by the regulation of the camp, which forbade more than twenty men at a time at 
night to go to the sinks. I have seen as many as five hundred men in a row waiting 
their time. The consequence was that they were obliged to use the places where they 
were. This produced great want of cleanliness, and aggravated the disease." Our meu 
were compelled to labour in unloading Federal vessels and in putting up buildings for 
Federal officers, and, if they refused, were driven to the work with clubs. 

The treatment of Brig.-Gen. J. H. Morgan and his ofiicers was brutal and ignomini- 
ous in the extreme. It will be found stated in the depositions of Capt. M. D. Logan, 
Lieut W. P. Crow, Lieut.-Col. James B. McCreary, and Capt. B. A. Tracey, that they 
were put in the Ohio Penitentiary, and compelled to submit to the treatment of felons. 
Their beards were shaved, and their hair was cut close to the head. They were con- 
fined in convicts' cells, and forbidden to speak to each other. For attempts to escape, and 
for other offisnces of a very light character, they were subjected to the horrible punish- 
ment of the dungeon. In midwinter, with the atmosphere many degrees below zero, 
without blanket or overcoat, they were confined in a cell, without fire or light, with a 
fetid and poisonous air to breathe — and here they were kept until life was nearly ex- 
tinct. Their condition on coming out, wiis so deplorable as to draw tears from their 
comrades. The blood was oozing from their hands and faces. The treatment in the 
St. Louis prison was equally barbarous. Capt. William H. Sebring testifies : " Two of 
us, A. C. Grimes and myself, were carried out into the open air in the prison yard, on the 
25th of December, 1863, and handcuffed to a post. Here we were kept all night in 
sleet, snow, and cold. We were relieved in the day-time, but again brought to the post 
and handcuffed to it in the evening — and thus we were kept all night mitil the 3d of 
January, 18G4. I was badly frost-bitten and my health was much impaired. This cruel 
infliction was done by order of Capt. Byrnes, Commandant of Prisons in St. Louis. He 
was barbarous and insulting to the last degree." 

But even a gi-eater inhumanity than any we have mentioned was perpetrated upon 
onr pris mers at Camp Douglas and Camp Chase. It is proved by the testimony of 
Thomas P. Ilolloway, John P. Fennell, II. H. Bai-low, H. 0. Barton, C. D. Bracken, and 
J. S. Barldw, that our prisoners in large numbers were put into " conden ned camps," 
where «mall-pox was prevailing, and speedily contracted this loathsome disease, and that 
as many as forty new cases often appeared daily among them. Even the Federal officers 
who guarded them to the camp protested against this unnatural atrocity : yet it was done. 
The men who contracted the disease were removed to a hospital about a mile off, but the 
plague was already introduced, and continued to prevail. For a period of more than 
twelve months the disease was constantly in tlie camp, yet our prisoners during all this 
time were continually brought to it, and subjected to certain infection. Neitlier do we 
find evidences of amendment on the part of our enemies, notwiths'anding the boasts of 
the "sanitary commission." At Nashville, prisoners recently capt?ired from General 
Hood's army, even when sick and wounded, have been cruelly deprived of all nourish- 
ment suited to their condition; and other prisoners from the same army have been 
carried into the infected Camps Douglas and Chase. 

Many of the soldiers of General Hood's army were frost-bitten by being kept day and 
Qight in an exposed condition before they were put into Camp Douglas. Their suffer- 
ings are truthfully depicted in the evidence. At Alton and C'amp Morton the same 
Inhuman practice of putting our prisoners into camps infected by small-pox, prevailed. 



CONFEDERATE REPORT ON PRISONS. 639 

It was equivalent to murdering many (if tliera by the torture of a contagious disease. The 
insufficient rations at Camp Morton forced our men to appease their liunger by pounding 
np and boiling bones, picking up scraps of meat and cabbage from the hospital slop tubs, 
and even eating rats and dogs. The depositions of Wm. Ayres and J. Chambers Crent 
prove tliese privations. 

The pimisliments often inflicted on our men for slight offences, have been shameful 
and barbarous. They have been compelled to ride a plank only four inches wide, called 
"Morgan's horse;" to sit down with their naked bodies in the snow for ten or fifteea 
minutes, and have been subjected to the ignominy of stripes from the belts of their 
guards. The pretext has been used, that many of their acts of cruelty have been by way 
of retaliation. But no evidence has been found to prove such acts on the part of the 
Confederate authorities. It is remarkable that in the case of Colonel Streight and his 
officers, they were subjected only to the ordinary confinement of prisoners of war. No 
special punishment was u^ed except for specific offences ; and then the greatest infliction 
was to confine Colonel Streight for a few weeks in a basement room of the Libby prison, 
with a window, a plank floor, a stove, a fire, and plenty of fuel. 

"We do not deem it necessary to dwell further on these subjects. Enough has been 
proved to show that great privations and sufferings have been borne by the prisoners on 
both sides. 



WHY HAVE NOT PEISONEKS OF WAE BEEN EXCHANGED ? 

But the question forces itself upon us, why have these sufferings been so long con- 
tinned ? Why have not the prisoners of war been exchanged, and thus some of the 
darkest pages of history spared to the world ? In the answer to this question must be 
found the test of responsibility for all the sufferings, sickness and heart-broken sorrow 
that have visited more than eighty thousand prisoners within the past two years. On 
this question, your committee can only say that the Confederate authorities have always 
desired a prompt and fair exchange of prisoners. Even before the establishment of a 
cartel they urged such exchange, but could never effect it by agreement until the large 
preponderance of prisoners in our hands made it the interest of the Federal authorities 
to consent to the cartel of July 22d, 1862. The 9th article of that agreement expressly 
provided, that in case any misunderstanding should arise, it sJtotild not interi'vpt the 
release of pi'isoners on parole, hnt should be made the subject of friendly explanation. 
Soon after this cartel was established, the policy of the enemy iu seducing negro slaves 
from their masters, arming them and putting white officers over them to lead them 
against us, gave rise to a few cases in which questions of crime under the internal laws of 
the Soutiiern States appeared. "Whether men who encouraged insurrection and murder 
could be held entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war under the cartel, was a grave 
question. But these cases were few in number, and ought never to have interrnpted the 
general exchange. "We were always ready and anxious to carry out the cartel in its true 
meaning, and it is certain that the 9th article required that the prisoners on both sides 
should be released, and that the few cases as to which misunderstanding occurred sliould 
be left for final decision. Doubtless if the preponderance of prisoners had continued with 
us, exchanges would have cuntinued. But the fortunes of war threw the larger number 
into the hands of our enemies. Then they refused further exchanges, and for twenty- 
two months this policy has continued. Onr Commissioner of Exchange has made con- 
stant efforts to renew them. In August, 1864, he consented to a proposition which had 
been repeatedly riade, to exchange officer for officer and man for man, leaving 



640 



THE LOST CAUSE. 



tlie surplus in captivify. Though this was a departure from the cartel, our anxiety for the 
exchange iu'Iuced us to consent. Yet, the Federal authorities repudiated their previous 
offer, and refused even this partial compliance with the cartel. Secretary Stanton, who 
has unjustly charged tlie Confederate authorities with iniumianity, is open to the charge 
01' liaving done all in his power to prevent a fair exchange, and thus to prolong the suf- 
ferings ot which he speaks ; and very recently, in a letter over his signature, Benjamin F 
Butler has declared that in April, 186-i, the Federal Lieut.-Gen. Grant forbade him " fc 
deliver to the rebels a single able-bodied man ;" and moreover. Gen. Butler acknowledges 
that in answer to Coh Quid's letter consenting to the exchange, officer for officer and 
man for man, he wrote a reply, "not diplomatically but obtrusively and demonstratively, 
not for the purpose of furthering exchange of prisoners, but for the purpose of preventing 
and stopping the exchange, and furnish mg a ground on which we could fairly stand.'''' 

These facts abundantly show that the responsibility of refusing to exchange prisoners 
of war rests with the Government of the United States, and the people who have sus- 
tained thit Government, and every sigh of captivity, every groan of suffering, every 
heart broken by hope deferred among these eighty thousand prisoners, will accuse them 
in the judgment of the just. 

With regard to the prison stations at Andersonville, Salisbury, and other places south 
of Richmond, your committee have not made extended examination, for reasons which 
have already been stated. "\Ye are satisfied that privation, suffering and mortality, to an 
extent much to lie regretted, did prevail among the prisoners there, but they were not 
the result of neglect, still less of design, on the part of the Confederate Government. 
Haste in preparation ; crowded quarters, prepared only for a smaller number ; frequent 
removals to prevent recapture ; want of transportation and scarcity of food, have all re- 
sulted from the pressure of the war, and the barbarous manner in which it has been 
conducted by our enemies. Upon these subjects your committee propose to take further 
evidence, and to report more fully hereafter. 

But even now enough is known to vindicate the South, and to furnish aa overwhelm- 
ing answer to all complahits on the part of the U. S. Government or people, that their 
prisoners were stinted in food or supplies. Their own savage warfare has wrought all 
the evil. They have blockaded our ports; have excluded from us food, clothing and 
medicines ; have even declared medicines contraband of war, and have repeatedly de- 
stroyed the contents of drug stores, and the supplies of private physicians in the country ; 
have ravaged our country ; burned our houses, and destroyed growing crops and farming 
implements. One of their officers (General Sheridan) has boasted in his official report, 
that, in the Shenandoah Valley alone, he burned two thousand barns filled with wheat 
and corn; that he burned all the mills in the whole tract of country ; destroyed all the 
factories of cloth, and killed or drove off every animal, even to the poultry, that could 
contribute to human sustenance. These desolations have been repeated again and again 
In different parts of the South. Thousands of our families have been driven from their 
homes, as helpless and destitute refugees. Our enemies have destroyed the railroads 
and other means of transportation, by which food could be supplied from abundant 
districts to those without it. While thus desolating our country, in violation of the 
usages of civilized warfare, they have refused to exchange prisoners; have forced us 
to keep fifty thousand of their men in captivity — and yet have attempted to attribute to 
us the sufferings and privations caused by their own acts. We cannot doubt that in the 
view of civilization we shall stand acquitted, while they must be condemned. 

In concluding this preliminary report, we will notice the strange perversity of in- 
tc-rpretation which has induced the " Sanitary Commission " to affix as a motto to theij 
pamphlet, the words of the compassionate Redeemer of mankind : 

"For I was anhungered and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty and ye gave me no 



STAEVATION IN NORTHERN PRISONS. 641 

drink : I was a strangei" and ye took me not in : naked, and ye clothed me not : sick and 
in prison and ye visited mo not." 

We have yet to learn on what principle the Federal soldiers sent with arms in their 
hands to destroy the lives of our people ; to waste our land, burn our houses and barns^ 
and drive us from our homes, can be regarded by us as the followers of the meek 
and lowly Redeemer, so as to claim the benefit of his words. Yet even these soldiers, 
when taken captive by us, have been treated with proper humanity. The cruelties in- 
flicted on our prisoners at the North may well justify us in applying to the " Sanitary 
Commission" the stern words of the Divine Teacher : " Thou hyjiocrite, first cast out 
the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out 
of thy brother's eye." 

We believe that there are many thousands of just, honourable, and humane people in 
the United States, upon whom this subject, thus presented, will not be lost ; that they 
will do all they can to mitigate the horrours of war ; to complete the exchange of pris- 
oners, now happily in progress, and to prevent the recurrence of such sufferings as have 
been narrated. And we repeat the words of the Confederate Congress, in their Mani- 
festo ot the 14th of June, 1864 : " We commit our cause to the enlightened judgment of 
the world ; to the sober reflections of our adversaries themselves, and to the solemn and 
righteous arbitrament of Heaven." 

The general important fact of this report is, the declaration of the 
result of sworn investigations to the effect that from the necessity of the 
case, Federal prisoners suffered considerably in the South, but were not, 
unless exceptionally, treated with indignity, oppression or cruelty ; and 
that the general rule was the other way as to our prisoners at the North — 
that the rule there was indignity, oppression and cruelty, and threatened, 
if not attempted, starvation in the midst of plenty. Where this fearful 
penalty was held over the victim was not in a land where the invader had 
proclaimed and carried out the policy of destroying every grain of wheat, 
and every ounce of meat, and everything that tended to its production ; 
not in a land whose women and children were already perishing for bread, 
but starvation in a land that flowed with milk and honey, starvation in a 
land that had not only an abundance, but a superabundance even of the 
luxuries of life ! * 

* The author might make, from various memoranda he has personally collected of the experiences 
of Confederate prisoners, a very vast addition to the instances of suffering collected by the committee 
at Richmond. The following will suflSce for examples. A Confederate officer, whose experience was 
at Johnson's Island, writes : 

"Xo sugar, no coffee, no tea; only bread and salt beef, or salt pork, or salt fish, the latter as 
poor as poverty, and as unnutritious as pine shavings, varied occasionally with fresh beef, but never 
more than two-thirds enough of either. Occasionally, we would get one onion, or one potato each, 
and an ounce or so of hominy. Many would consume the whole at one meal ; others thought it 
more wise to divide it into two or three meals ; but all were hungry continually. Sir, it is a terri- 
ble thmg to be hungry from day to day, from week to week, from month to month — to be always 
hungry ! It is fearful to see three thousand men cooped up and undergoing such an ordeal 1 
Should it be a matter of riuvprise that men dwindled from 200 to 140 and 100 pounds; that their 
eyes had a strange and ea^er °xpres<ion ; that they grew pale, cadaverous ; that they walked with an 
41 



64:2 THE LOST CAUSE. 

To the exposition made by the Riclimond Congress of the humane en- 
deavours of the Confederacy, with respect to prisoners of the war, there is 
yet an addition to be made. Impressed with the exaggerations of the 
newspapers on this subject, and desiring to secure the publication of the 
truth from time to time, Commissioner Ould, in January, 1864, wrote to 
Gen. Hitchcock the following letter : 



::[ 



Confederate States of Amebica, 
War Department. 
BiCHMOND, Va., Jan. 24th, 1864' 

Majoe-Gknkkal E. a. Hitchoook, 
Agent of Exchange; 

Sm: In view of the present difficulties attending the exchange and release 
of prisoners, I propose that all such on each side shall be attended by a proper number 
of their own surgeons, who under rules to be established, shall be permitted to take 
charo-e of their health and comfort. I also propose that these surgeons shall act as 
commissaries, with power to receive and distribute such contributions of money, fuod, 
clothing and medicines as may be forwarded for the relief of the prisoners. I further 
propose that these surgeons shall be selected by their own Government, and that they 
shall have full liberty at any and all times through the Agents of Exchange, to malce 
reports not only of their own acts, but of any matters relating to the welfare of the 
prisoners. 

Kespectfully your obedient servant, 

EO. OULD, Agent of Exchange. 

To this letter Commissioner Ould received no reply. In January, 1865, 
the proposition was renewed to Gen. 'Grant, with the followiog remarks : 
" It is true your prisoners are sufi'ering. It is one of the calamities and 

unsteady gait ; that all talked continually of ' something to eat ' — of the good dinner, or breakfast, 
or supper they had had at times and places that seemed very long ago, and very far off; that they 
slept but to dream of sitting down to tables groaning with rich viands, where they ate, and ate, and 
still could not be satisfied ; that with miserly care they picked up every crumb ; that they pounded 
up old bones, and boiled them over and over, until they were as white as the driven snow ; that 
they fished in the swill-barrel at the prison hospital ; that they greedily devoured rats and cats ; 
that they resorted to all manner of devices and tricks to cheat the surgeon out of a certificate ; that 
they became melancholy and dejected ; that they fell an easy prey to disease and death ! Ah ! 
there is many a poor fellow in his grave on Johnson's Island to-day, who would not be there had he 
been allowed wholesome food and enough of it." 

A personal friend of the author gives a long and painfully interesting account of his experience 
in a trans-shipment of prisoners from Hilton Head to Fort Delaware, the terrible facta of which rival 
all that is known of the horrours of the " middle passage." Of 420 prisoners shipped by sea, only 
sixty-two could walk when the vessel arrived at Fort Delaware ; the others were all down with 
sickness and exhaustion, and had to be taken to their cells on stretchers and ambulances. Many 
of them had lost their teeth by scurvy, and many were blind from disease. For months they had 
been subsisted on eight ounces of com meal (ground in 1860) and one ounce of pickle (vitriol and 
salt), as a substitute for sorghum. Their rations were improved for a little while at Fort Delaware. 
But the regulations for cooking there allotted for such purpose to a company of 100 men every 
twenty-four hours, a log, 10 feet long and eight inches in diameter. There were no cooking uten- 
sils. Old pieces of tin were used over the fire. The men were locked up eighteen out of twenty- 
four hours, and only twenty at a time were allowed to pass out for the offices ofnature. 



HUMANITT OF THE CONFEDEEATES. 643 

necessities of the war, made so not bj our choice. We have done every- 
thing we can consistently with the duty we owe to ourselves. We intend 
to do the same in the future. But that great suffering must ensue if your 
prisoners remain in our hands, is very certain. For that reason, I propose 
that all of them be delivered to you in exchange, man for man, and officer 
for officer, according to grade, for those of ours whom you hold. Will not 
the cause of humanity be far more promoted by such a course, even 
if, as you suggest, the friends of prisoners, both North and South, are satis- 
fied of the exaggeration of the reports of suffering so rife in both sections ? 
If, however, prisoners are to remain in confinement, at least, let us mutu- 
ally send to their relief and comfort stationary agents, whose official duty 
requires them to devote all their time and labour to their sacred mission." 
Gen. Grant did not reply. Perhaps he thought matters were too near 
the end to entertain any new negotiations on the subject referred to. 
However this may be, whatever was to be the catastrophe, tlie conclusion 
is simply stated : it was to leave the CorXederacy with a complete record 
of justice, a testimony of humanity, on the whole eubject of the exchange 
and treatment of prisoners, which must ever remain among die noblest 
honours and "ourest souvenirs of a lost cause. 



OHAPTEE XXXIX. 

HOW Sherman's march through Georgia developed a crisis ik the coutederaoy. — qbo- 

6RAPHICAL IMPOSSIBILITY OF THE CONQUEST OF THE SOUTH. — ADDRESS OF THE CONFED- 
SRATE congress. — A VULGAR AND FALSE ESTIMATE OF THE ENEMY's SUCCESS. — MAPS OF 
CONQUEST AND COBWEB LINES OF OCCUPATION. — GENERAL DECAY OF PUBLIC SPIRIT IN 
rms, CONFEDERACY. — POPULAR IMPATIENCE OF THE "WAR. — WANT OF CONFIDENCE IN 
PRESIDENT DAVIs' ADMINISTRATION. — BEWILDERED ATTEMPTS AT COUNTER-REVOLUTION. 
— EXECUTIVE MISMANAGEMENT IN RICHMOND. — HOW THE CONSCRIPTION LAW WAS CHEAT- 
ED. — DESERTERS IN THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES. — PECULIAR CAUSES FOR IT. — ITS FRIGHT- 
FUL EXTENT. — HOW IT WAS NOT A SIGN OF INFIDELITY TO THE CONFEDERATE CAUSE. — 
CONDITION OF THE COMMISSARIAT. — BREAD TAKEN FROM GEN. LEE's ARMY TO FEED 
PRISONERS. — ALARMING REDUCTION OF SUPPLIES. — MAJOR FRENCH'S LETTER. — LEE's 
TROOPS BORDERING ON STARVATION. — EIGHT POINTS PRESENTED TO CONGRESS. — WHAT IT 
DID. — THE CONDITION OF THE CURRENCY. — CONGRESS CURTAILS THE CURRENCY ONE- 
THIRD. — ACT OF 17th FEBRUARY, 1864. — SECRETARY SEDDON GIVES THE COlip de grace 
TO THE CURRENCY. — HIS NEW STANDARD OF VALUE IN WHEAT AT FORTY DOLLARS A 
BUSHEL. — DISORDERS OF THE CURRENCY AND COMMISSARIAT AS CONTRIBUTING TO DESER- 
TIONS. — IMPRACTICABILITY OF ALL REMEDIES FOR DESERTIONS. — NO DISAFFECTION IN THE 
CONFEDERACY, EXCEPT WITH REFERENCE TO FAULTS OF THE RICHMOND ADMINISTRATION. 
— PRESIDENT DAVIS AND THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS, &0. — THREE PRINCIPAL MEASURES 
IN CONGRESS DIRECTED AGAINST THE PRESIDENT. — REMONSTRANCE OF THE VIRGINIA 
DELEGATION WITH REFERENCE TO THE CABINET. — RESIGNATION OF MR. SEDDON. — PER- 
SONAL RELATIONS BETWEEN PRESIDENT DAVIS AND GEN. LEE. — WHY THE LATTER DE- 
CLINED TO TAKE COMMAND OF ALL THE ARMIES OF THE CONFEDERACY. — WANT OF SELF- 
ASSERTION IN GEN. lee's character. — WHY HIS INFLUENCE IN THE GENERAL AFFAIRS 
OF THE CONFEDERACY WAS NEGATIVE. — RECRIMINATION BETWEEN PRESIDENT DAVIS AND 
CONGRESS. — A SINGULAR ITEM IN THE CONSCRIPTION BUREAU. — REMARK OF MRS. DAVIS 
TO A CONFEDERATE SENATOR. — THE OPPOSITION LED BY SENATOR WIGFALL. — HIS TERRIBLE 
AND ELOQUENT INVECTIVES. — A CHAPTER OF GREAT ORATORY LOST TO THE WORLD. — AN 
APPARENT CONTRADICTION IN THE PRESIDENT'S CHARACTER. — THE INFLUENCE OF " SMALL 
FAVOURITES." — JOHN M. DANIEL's OPINION OF PRESIDENT DAVIs' TEARS. — INFLUENCE OF 
THE PRESIDENT ALMOST ENTIRELY GONE IN THE LAST PERIODS OF THE WAR. — THE VISIBLE 
•WRECKS OF HIS ADMINISTRATION. — HISTORY OF " PEACE PROPOSITIONS " IN CONGRESS. — ' 

THEY WERE GENERALITIES. — ANALYSIS OF THE " UNION PARTY " IN THE SOUTH. HOW 

GOV. BROWN, OF GEORGIA, WAS USED BY IT. — ITS PERSISTENT DESIGN UPON THE VIRGINLA 
I.EGISLATURE. — HOW IT WAS REBUFFED. — HEROIC CHOICE OF VIRGINIA. — PRESIDENT 



GEOGEAPHICAL mPOSSIBILITY OF SUBJUGATION. 645 

DA vis' TEIBUTE TO THIS STATE. — WANT OF KESOLCTION IN OTHER PARTS OF THE CONFED- 
ICBAOT. — SUMMAET EXPLANATION OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE CONFEDEEAOT. — 
PEOPOSITION TO AEM THE SLAVES OF THE SOUTH INDICATIVE OF A DESPERATE CONDITION. 
— HOW IT WAS IMPRACTICABLE AND ABSURD. — NOT FIVE THOUSAND SPARE MUSKETS IS 
THE CONFEDERACY. — PALTRY LEGISLATION OF CONGRESS. — GEASPING AT SHADOWS. 

There was notliing fatal in a military point of view in Sherman's mem- 
orable march ; and yet it dated the first chapter of the subjugation of the 
Confederacy. It brought the demoralization of the coimtry to the surface ; 
it had plainly originated in the pragmatic and excessive folly of President 
Davis ; it furnished a striking occasion for recrimination, and was accom- 
panied with a loss of confidence in his administration, that nothing but a 
miracle could repair. 

We have already referred in another part of this work to the physical 
impossibility of the subjugation of the South at the hands of the North, as 
long as the integrity of the public resolution was maintained. This im- 
possibility was clearly and distinctly stated, in an address of the Congress 
to the people of the Confederate States as late as the winter of 1864:-5. 
That body then declared, with an intelligence that no just student of history 
will fail to appreciate : " The passage of hostile armies through our country, 
though productive of cruel sufl'ering to our people, and great pecuniary 
loss, gives the enemy no permanent advantage or foothold. To subjugate 
a country, its civil government must be suppressed by a continuing mili- 
tary force, or supplanted by another, to which the inhabitants yield a vol- 
untary or forced obedience. The passage of hostile annies through our 
territory cannot produce this result. Permanent garrisons would have to 
be stationed at a sufiicient number of points to strangle all civil govern- 
ment before it could be pretended, even by the United States Government 
itself, that its authority was extended over these States. How many gar- 
risons would it require? How many hundred thousand soldiers would 
suffice to suppress the civil government of all the States of the Confed- 
eracy, and to establish over thera, even in name and form, the authority 
of the United States ? In a geographical point of view, therefore, it may 
be asserted that the conquest of these Confederate States is impracticable." 

The " geographical point of view " was decisive. The Confederacy 
was yet far from the extremity of subjugation, even after Sherman had 
marched from Northern Georgia to the sea-coast. He had left a long scar 
on the State ; but he had not conquered the country ; he had been unable 
to leave a garrison on his route since he left Dal ton ; and even if he passed 
into the Carolinas, to defeat him at any stage short of Richmond would be 
to re-open and recover all the country he had overrun. It was the fashion 
i n the North to get up painted maps, in which all the territory of the SottJi 
traversed by a Federal army, or over which there was a cob-web line of 
military occupation, was marked as conquest, and the other parts desig- 



64:6 THE LOST CAUSE. 

nated as the remnant of the Confederacy. This aj>peal to the vulgar eyo 
was not without eflect, but it was very absurd. Lines drawn upon paper 
alarmed the multitude ; it was sufficient for them to know that the enemy 
was at such and such points ; they never reflected that a title of occupa- 
tion was worthless, without garrisons or footholds, that it often depended 
upon the issue of a single field, and that one or two defeats might put the 
whole of the enemy's forces back upon the frontiers of the Confederacy. 

But the military condition of the Confederacy must be studied in con- 
nection with the general decay of public spirit that had taken place in the 
country, and the impatience of the hardships of the war, when the people 
had no longer confidence in its ultimate results. This impatience was man- 
ifested everywhere ; it amounted to the feeling, that taking the war to be 
hopeless, the sooner it reached an adverse conclusion the better ; that vic- 
tories which merely amused the imagination and insured prolongation of 
the war, were rather to be deprecated than otherwise, and that to hurry 
the catastrophe would be mercy in the end. Unpopular as the adminis- 
tration of President Davis was, evident as was its failure, there were not 
nerve and elasticity enough in the country for a new experiment. The 
history of the last Confederate Congress is that of vacillating and bewild- 
ered attempts to reform and check the existing disorder and the evident 
tendency to ruin — weak, spasmodic action, showing the sense of nece&sity 
for effort, but the want of a certain plan and a sustained resolution. 

In the last periods of the war, the demoralization of the Confederacy 
was painfully apparent. The popular resolution that had been equal to so 
long a contest, that had made so many proffers of devotion, that had given 
60 many testimonies of sacrifice and endurance, had not perhaps inherent- 
ly failed. But it had greatly declined in view of Executive mismanage- 
ment, in the utter loss of confidence in the Richmond Administration, and 
under the oppressive conviction that its sacrifices were wasted, its pur- 
poses thwarted, and its efforts brought to nought, by an incompetent gov- 
ernment. This official mismanagement not only impaired the popular 
effort, but by the unequal distribution of burdpns incident to weak and ii*- 
regular governments, even where such is not designed, incurred the charge 
of corrupt favour, and exasperated large portions of the community. Eich 
and powerful citizens managed to escape the conscription — it was said in 
Richmond that it was " easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
needle than for a rich man to enter Camp Lee ; " but the rigour of the 
law did not spare the poor and helpless, and the complaint was made in 
the Confederate Congress that even destitute cripples had been taken from 
their homes, and confined in the conscription camps, without reference to 
physical disability so conspicuous and pitiful. It was not unusual to see 
at the railroad stations long lines of squalid men, with scraps of blankets 
in their hands, or small pine boxes of provisions, or whatever else they 



DnriNOTION OF CONFEDERATE BUPPLTES. 04:7 

might snatcli in their hurried departure from their homes, whence tliej' 
had been taken ahnost without a moment's notice, and ticketed for the 
various camps of instruction in the Confederacy. 

In armies thus recruited, desertions were the events of every day. 
There were other causes of desertion. Owing to the gross mismanagement 
of the commissariat, and a proper effort to mobilize the subsistence of the 
Confederacy, the armies were ahnost constantly on short rations, eomc- 
times without a scrap of meat, and frequently in a condition bordering on 
-absolute starvation. The Confederate soldier, almost starving himself, 
heard constantly of destitution at home, and was distressed with the sufter- 
ing of his family, and was constantly plied with temptation to go to their 
protection and relief. A depreciated currency, which had been long 
abused by ignorant remedies and empirical treatment reduced nearly every 
home in the Confederacy to the straits of poverty. A loaf of bread was 
worth three dollars in Richmond. A soldier's monthly pay would scarcely 
buy a pair of socks ; and paltry as this pay was, it was constantly in 
arrears, and there were thousands of soldiers who had not received a cent 
in the last two years of the war. In such a condition of ajft'airs it was no 
wonder that desertions were numerous, where there was really no infidelity 
to the Confederate cause, and where the circumstances a2)pealed so strongly 
to the senses of humanity, that it was impossible to deal harshly with the 
offence, and adopt for example the penalty of death. For every Confed- 
erate soldier who went over to the Federal lines, there were hundreds who 
dropped out from the rear and deserted to their homes. It was estimated 
in 1864, that the conscription would put more than four hundred thousand 
men in the field. Scarcely more than one-fourth of this number were 
found under arms when the close of the war tore the veil from the thin 
lines of Confederate defence. 



CONDITION OF THE COMMISSAHIAT. 

We have elsewhere noticed the mismanagement of the Confederate 
commissariat, and the rapid diminution of supplies in the country. The 
close of the year 1864, was to find a general distress for food, and an 
actual prospect, even without victories of the enemy's arms,, of starving 
the Confederacy into submission. 

On the 2d May, two days before the battles of the last spring commenced, 
there were but two days' rations for Lee's army in Richmond. On the 23d 
June, when Wilson and Kautz cut the Danville Railroad, which was not 
repaired for twenty-three days, there were only thirteen days' rations on 
hand for Gen. Lee's army, and to feed it the Commissary General had to 
Dffer market rates for wheat, then uncut or shocked in the field — thereby 



648 ^ THE LOST CAUSE. 

incurring an excess of expenditure, wliicli, if invested in corn and tranis. 
portation, would have moved ten millions of bread rations from Augusta to 
Riclimond. 

At the opening of the campaign, Grcn, Lee had urged the importance 
of having at least thirty days' reserves of provisions at Richmond and at 
Lynchburg. We have just seen how impossible it was to meet his views. 
It is a curious commentary on the alleged cruelty of Confederates to their 
prisoners, that in the winter of 1863-4, our entire reserve in Richmond 
of thirty thousand barrels of flour was consumed by Federal prisoners of 
war, and the bread taken from the mouths of our soldiers to feed them ! 

In the course of the campaign there had been the most serious reduc- 
tions of supplies. The exhaustion of Virginia, the prevalence of drought 
and the desolation of the lower Yalley and the contiguous Piedmont coun- 
ties by the enemy, reduced her yield very considerably. The march of a 
Federal army through the heart of Georgia, and the possession of Savan- 
nah as a secure base for raids and other military operations, was, of course, 
calculated to reduce her yield. The amount of tithe had proved a very 
imperfect guide to the quantity of meat that might be obtained under its 
indications. Thus, in South Carolina, only two and one-half per cent, of 
the sum of the tithe was reported as purchased. 

In Yu'ginia the supply even of bread was practically exhausted, and 
but little more could be expected, even after the next wheat crop came in. 
The present corn crop was no better, probably worse, than the last. Add 
to this the destruction of whole districts by Federal armies, the effect of 
calling out the whole reserve force, and subsequently of revoking and put- 
ting into the field or in camp all detailed farmers at the period of seeding 
wheat, the absconding of numerous negroes under the fear of being placed 
in our armies, and it was apparent that no bread could be expected from 
Virginia. 

In November, 1864, President Davis applied to the Commissary Gen- 
eral to know if his magazines were increasing or diminishing. He sent 
back word that they were diminishing, and to give him more accurate in- 
formation forwarded the following statement, made in the previous 
month, disclosing the alarming fact, that thirty million requisitions were 
unfilled. 

Bureau op Subsistence, j 
Richmond, October 18, 1864. j 

Col. L. B. Northrop, Commissary-General of Subsistence : 

Colonel : I have the honour to submit for your consideration the inclosed memor 
andum of meats on hand at the various depots and posts in the Confederai;e States, from 
which you will see at a glance the alarming condition of the commissariat. Georgia, 
AJabama, and Mississippi are the only States where we have an accumulation, and from 
these all the armies of the Oonfederacy are now subsisting, to say nothing of the pris- 



DISTRESS FOK FOOD IN THE 80UTH. 649 

oners. The Chief Commissary of Georgia telegraphs that he cannot send forward an- 
other pound, Alabama, under the most urgent call, has recently shipped 125,000 
pounds, but cannot ship more. Mississippi is rendering all the aid possible to the com- 
mand of Gen. Beauregard, in supplying beef. She is without bacon. Florida is ex- 
hausted, and can only respond to the local demand. South Carolina is scarcely able to 
subsist the troops at Charleston and the prisoners in the interiour of the State. During 
my late trip to North Carolina I visited every section of the State, for the purpose of 
ascertaining the true condition of aflfairs, and, under your orders, to send forward every 
pound of meat possible to the Army of Northern Virginia, and to supply the forts at 
Wilmington. After a thorough and careful examination I was unable (taking into con- 
sideration the local daily issues) to ship one pound to either Virgina or Wilmington ; 
and but for the timely arrival of the steamer Banshee at Wilmington, Gen. Lee's order 
for thirty days' reserve at the forts could not have been furnished. From the enclosed 
memorandum you will notice that we have only on hand in the Confederate States 
4,105,048 rations of fresh meat, and 3,426,519 rations of bacon and pork, which will sub- 
sist three hundred thousand men twenty-five days. We are now compelled to subsist, 
independent of the armies of the Confederacy, the prisoners of war, the Navy Depart- 
ment, and the different bureaus of the War Department. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

S. B. FRENCH, Major and C. S. 

On the 5th December, the Commissary General brought the condition 
of things to the attention of the Secretary of War, coupling it witli a state- 
ment of subsistence on hand, which showed nine days' rations on hand for 
Gen. Lee's array ; and, quoting a letter from the commander, that day 
received, stating that his men were deserting on account of short rations, 
he urged prompt action. But none was taken. On the 14tli December, 
nine days afterwards, Gen. Lee telegraphed President Davis that liis army 
was without meat. This disaster was averted for the time by tlie timely 
arrival of several vessel loads of supplies at Wilmington. 

In a secret session of the Confederate Congress in Richmond, the condi- 
tion of the Confederacy, with respect to subsistence was thus enumerated : 

Mrst. — That there was not meat enough in the Southern Confederacy, 
for the armies it had in the field. 

Second. — That there was not in Virginia either meat or bread enough 
for the armies within her limits. 

Third. — That the bread supply from other places depended absolutely 
upon the keeping open the railroad connections of the South. 

FourtU. — That the meat must be obtained from abroad through a sea- 
port, and by a different system from that which prevailed. 

Fifth. — That the bread could not be had by impressment, but must be 
paid for in market rates. 

Sixth. — ^That the payment must be made in cash, which, so far, had not 
been furnished, and from present indications could not be, and, if possible, 
in a better medium than at present circulatins. 



650 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Seventh. — That the transportation was not now adequate, from what- 
ever cause, to meet the necessary demands of the service. 

JElghth. — That the supply of fresh meat to Gen. Lee's army was pre- 
carious, and if the army fell back from Richmond and Petersburg, there 
was every probability that it would cease altogether. 

To meet these great necessities, nothing was done by the Government 
beyond a visionary scheme enacted in the last days of Congress, to raise 
three millions in specie to purchase^supplies from those producers of the 
Confederacy, who were no longer willing to take scrip for their commodi- 
ties. Probably a tithe of the sum was raised, and the paltry scheme actu- 
ally executed in a few of the Western counties of Yirginia. 



THE CONDITION OF THE CUERENCY. 

In 1864, the Confederate Government had given the finishing blow to 
the currency. 

By the end of 1863, the policy of paying off all debts and making all 
purchases with money manufactured for the purpose as needed, had 
swollen the volume of the currency to more than six hundred millions of 
dollars. If we recollect that, before the war, fifty millions of bank notes, 
and twenty millions of specie, had sufiiced for the currency of eleven 
States ; and observe that about one-third of the area of these States was, in 
the beginning of 186-4, under the control of the invader, we can appre- 
hend how excessively redundant a circulation exceeding six hundred mil- 
lions of dollars must have proved to be in the restricted territory remain- 
ing under the Confederate sway. Legislation was deemed to be absolutely 
necessary to bring down the bulk of this circulation, and to give greater 
value to the paper dollar. Accordingly, on the 17th February, 1861, an 
act of Congress was passed of a very sweeping character. The design of 
the law was, to call in from circulation, the whole outstanding six hundred 
millions of paper money ; and to substitute for the old a new issue of 
greatly enhanced value. Its provisions were well calculated to effect this 
object. It provided that until the 1st day of April next succeeding the 
passage of the law, east of the Mississippi, and the 1st day of July west of 
this river, the holders of the outstanding currency above the denomination 
of five dollars, should be at liberty to exchange the same at par for four 
per cent, bonds of the government ; which bonds should be receivable in 
the payment of all Confederate taxes. The law, however, did not exempt 
these bonds from taxation. It further provided that after the period first 
specified, this liberty of funding at par should cease, and that the entire 
body of the currency, except notes under the denomination of five dollars, 
should cease to be current, and should be exchangeable for the notes of a 



KEDDCTION OF THE CONFEDERATE CUERENCT. 651 

new issue at tlie rate of three dollars of the old issue for two dollars of 
the new ; and that non-interest-bearing notes of the denomination of one 
hundred dollars should be subject in addition to a further tax of ten per 
cent, per month, for the time they should remain outstanding after the 1st 
of April. All the notes of the old issue were to be receivable in payment 
of taxes after the 1st of April, 1SG4:, at the reduced rate at which they 
were exchangeable for the new issue. But it was provided that notes of 
the denomination of one hundred dollars should not be exchangeable for 
notes of the new issue. The privilege of exchanging should continue until 
the 1st day of January, 1865, and should then cease. After that date, all 
treasury notes of the old issue remaining outstanding were to be subject 
to a tax of one hundred per cent. Notes of the new issue, and notes of 
the old scaled to two-thirds of their full value, might be exchanged at the 
treasury for call certificates, bearing four per cent, interest and payable two 
years after the notification of a treaty of peace with the United States ; 
but notes of the old issue of the denomination of one hundred dollars were 
not to be thus exchangeable. 

The efiect of this measure was, to compel the conversion of all notes of 
the denomination of one hundred dollars into the four per cent, bonds. It 
also presented to the holders of notes of the other denominations, the alter- 
native of exchanging them at par for the four per cent, bonds, or of sub- 
mitting to the tax of one-third, and converting them into notes of the new 
issue. This latter com'se was preferred by a large majority of the note 
holders, under the conviction, that the reduction effected by the Act in 
this volume of the circulation, would so strengthen the value of the new 
issues, as to render the two new dollars which they received for the three 
old ones more valuable than the three. 

The effect of the measure was, to produce a reduction in the mass of 
currency to the extent of rather less than three hundred millions of dollars ; 
and to leave, during the latter part of the year 1864, and the beginning of 
1865, the amount of treasury notes in circulation in the Confederacy, at 
three hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars, an amount which was 
found to be perfectly manageable ; and which, indeed, under the deprecia- 
tion of the new issue, which took place towards the close, was found to bo 
inadequate to the wants of the country. For, at the rate of sixty for one, 
at which the Confederate Government itself sold specie for several months 
in Richmond, this three hundred and twenty-five millions of currency 
represented only the value of five millions in specie and general property ; 
and the natural result was a very great stringency in the money market. 

But the currency act of February signally failed in its object. The new 
currency was not issued promptly. The old currency remained in circula- 
tion, depreciated in value by the operation of causes which preceded the 
currency act, aided by the trenchant provisions of the Act itself. The ex- 



652 THE LOST CAUSE. 

change of tlie new for the old money, was not effected in tlie country at 
large for many months ; during which the worthlessness of the currency 
became an idea too firmly fixed in the public mind to be removed. One 
sad blunder, committed in the month of August, 1864, gave the money 
the coup-de-grace. The commissioners of the State of Virginia, charged 
with the duty of assessing the value of property taken by government, 
were directed by the Secretary of War, Mr. Seddon, to raise the price of 
wheat to forty dollars per bushel. At this rate the Secretary of War him- 
self sold a large crop of wheat to the government, as did also a considera- 
ble number of his neighbours, who were large farmers on the James River, 
This action gave great dissatisfaction, and cheapened Confederate money 
to a degree from which it never recovered. Previously to this action, tho 
people at large had for a long time received and paid the money at the 
rate of twenty for one. But when a prominent member of the Cabinet 
put down the value to forty for one, and authorized the commissioners of 
the government to shift the prices of commodities on this basis, the twenty 
dollar scale was discarded everywhere ; and the public mind conceived a 
distrust of the money of which it never divested itself. The commissioners 
soon discovered their blunder, and re-established the old scale ; but it was 
too late. From forty to one the price of the money went gradually down 
until, in February, it reached the low figure of sixty for one. For several 
months about this time, and until the evacuation of Richmond, the gov- 
ernment steadily sold specie in Richmond at prices approximating that 
rate ; and but for the value thus given, the money would have completely 
lost its purchasing power. 

The statements of insufficiency of food in the army ; the distress from 
tlie currency, the peculiar temptations which Confederate soldiers had to 
desert, not to the enemy, but to their own poverty-stricken homes ; and 
the impracticability of executing the death penalty upon an offence which 
had so many circumstances to palliate it, sufficiently indicate how difficult 
to deal with was the question of desertions in the armies of the Southern 
Confederacy. The strong mind of Gen. Lee was long and painfully em- 
ployed in devising a remedy for an evil which was eating into the vital 
parts of our resources, and which was indeed " the army-worm " of the 
Confederacy. But the evil was but little within the reach of any remedy 
and was logically uncontrollable. Appeals to patriotism were of but little 
avail, for in nine cases out of ten Confederate desertions had not happened 
from political disaff'ection, but from causes which had over-ridden and borne 
down public 8j)irit. Attempts to reclaim deserters by force were equally 
unavailing, for whole regiments would have to be detached for the pur- 
pose, and there were unpleasant stories of the murder of enrolling officers 
in some parts of the Confederacy. 

The fact is, the prime evil was behind desertions. In contemplating 



PRESIDENT DAVIS AND CONGRESS. ■ 653 

the decline of the Confederate armies, we must not rest on secondary causes, 
such as desertions ; for these we have shown were almost entirely the 
consequence of a mismanaged commissariat, and a currency wrecked by 
mal-administration at Kichmond. All the stories of Confederate decay are 
traced at last to one source : the misgovernment that had made make- 
shifts in every stage of the war, at last to the point of utter deprivation, 
and had finally broken down the spirit of its armies and the patience of its 
people. The disaffection in the Confederacy that was original, that was 
purely political, that did not proceed from some particular grievance of 
the administration in Kichmond, was utterly inconsiderable, and was per- 
haps less than was ever known in any great popular commotion in the 
history of the world. 



PRESIDENT DAVIS AND THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS, &C. 

There was a series of measures in the Confederate Congress directed 
against the administration of President Davis ; it was the faint shadow of 
a counter-revolution ; but as we have said, the disposition was not firm 
enough for a decisive experiment, and perhaps the public affairs of the 
Confederacy had lapsed too far to be reclaimed by legislative remedies. 
This series of measures was the appointment of Lee to a military dictator- 
ship ; the restoration of Johnston to active command ; and the reform of 
the Cabinet, so far at least as to secure a purer and better administration 
of the War office, then in the hands of Mr. Seddon, the wreck of a man, a 
walking skeleton, industrious, but facile, and at a period of life when the 
professional politician readily falls to the oflice of a tool in the hands of 
an arbitrary master. The two first measures were accomplished but im- 
perfectly. The command of all the Confederate armies was given to Gen. 
Lee, but this conscientious chieftain never practically asserted it. The 
restoration of Johnston was ungraciously conceded by President Davis ; 
but he was not put in command of the forces south of Richmond until 
they had been swept by Sherman through two States into the forests of 
North Carolina, and were so broken and disorganized that the campaign 
may be said to have been already lost. 

A delegation of the Virginia members of Congress, headed by Mr. Bo- 
cock, the speaker of the House, addressed to President Davis an earnest 
but most respectful paper, expressing their want of confidence in the ca- 
pacity and services of his Cabinet. The President resented the address as 
impertinent ; and when Mr. Seddon, Secretary of War, recognizing the 
censure as particularly directed against himself, a Virginian, insisted upon 
resigning, President Davis took occasion to declare that the event of this 
resignation would in no manner change the policy or course of his admin- 



654 THE LOST CAUSE. 

istration, and made it very plain that tlie course of Mr. Seddon was to be 
ascribed to his punctilio, and to be taken in no manner as a triumph of the 
Opposition in Congress. 

No man within the limits of the Southern Confederacy had such in- 
fluence over its President as Gen. Lee. It was the only happy instance 
of well-bestowed confidence and merited deference on the part of Presi- 
dent Davis ; and to the last period of the war entire accord, and a warm 
personal friendship existed between himself and the commander of the 
Army of Northern Yirginia. It will naturally be asked why, in such re- 
lations, Gen. Lee did not impose his views upon the President, varying as 
they did from the actual conduct of his administration, and inclined, as all 
the Confederacy knew, to a policy very difi'erent from that which Presi- 
dent Davis actually pursued. Gen. Lee was in favour of enlisting negro 
troops, and he was anxious for the reorganization of the forces south of 
Richmond, and the restoration of Johnston to command. But for a long 
time Davis carried both points against him. Gen. Lee was offered the 
entire and exclusive conduct of the military affairs of the Confederacy ; 
Congress made him commander-in-chief; the Legislature of Yirginia passed 
a resolution declaring that " the appointment of Gen. Eobert E. Lee to 
the command of all the armies of the Confederate States would promote 
their efficiency and operate powerfully to reanimate the spirits of the 
armies, as well as of the people of the several States, and to inspire in- 
creased confidence in the final success of our cause." Yet Gen. Lee did 
not accept the trust ; he remained with his limited command in Yirginia ; 
he made no effort to carry out his views against the administration at 
Richmond. And what is most remarkable in all these differences between 
President Davis and Gen. Lee, there never was even a momentary dis- 
turbance of kindly relations, as between themselves, and of mutual compli- 
ments. Indeed, President Davis replied to the Legislature of Yirginia, that 
he had desired to surrender all military affairs to Gen. Lee, but that the 
latter persisted in his refusal to accept a trust of such magnitude. He 
said : " The opinion expressed by the General Assembly in regard to 
Gen. R. E. Lee has my full concurrence. Yirginia cannot have a higher 
regard for him, or greater confidence in his character and ability, than ia 
entertained by me. When Gen. Lee took command of the Army of 
Northern Yirginia, he was in command of all the armies of the Confede- 
rate States by my order of assignment. He continued in this general com- 
mand, as well as in the immediate command of the Army of Northern 
Yirginia, as long as I would resist his opinion that it was necessary for 
him to be relieved from one of these two duties. Ready as he has ever 
shown himself to be to perform any service that I desired him to render 
to his country, he left it for me to choose between his withdrawal from the 
command of the army in the field, and relieving him of the general comr 



GEN. lee's mELTJENCE. 655 

inand of all the armies of the Confederate States. It was only wlien sat« 
islied of this necessity that I came to the conclusion to relieve him from 
the general command, believing that the safety of the capital and the suc- 
cess of our cause depended, in a great measure, on then retaining him in 
the command in the field of the Army of Northern Yirginia. On several 
subsequent occasions, the desire on my part to enlarge the sphere of Gen. 
Lee's usefulness, has led to renewed consideration of the subject, and he 
has always expressed his inability to assume command of other armies 
than those now confided to him, unless relieved of the immediate com- 
mand in the field of that now opposed to Gen. Grant." 

The explanation of these differences between President Davis and Gen. 
Lee, without any issue ever being declared between them, is easy when 
the character of the latter is understood. No great actor in history had 
ever less self-assertion than Gen. Lee ; outside of the limits of his particu- 
lar command, he was one of those who never gave an opinion, except in 
the shape of a suggestion ; his warm personal friendship resisted any atti- 
tude of hostility to the President ; and although he differed from much of 
his policy, he went so far as to declare to several members of the Rich- 
mond Congress, that whatever might be Davis' errours he was yet consti- 
tutionally/ the President, and that nothing could tempt himself to en- 
croach upon prerogatives which the Constitution had bestowed upon its 
designated head. The world will see in such conduct some pleasing traces 
of modesty and conscientiousness ; although it is much to be regretted, in 
view of the circumstances and sequel of the Confederacy, that Gen. Lee 
was not an ambitious man, or did not possess more of that vigorous self- 
ishness that puts the impressions of individuality on the pages of history. 
The fact was that, although many of Gen. Lee's views were sound, yet, 
outside of the limits of the Army of Northern Yirginia, and with reference 
to the general affairs of the Confederacy, his influence was negative and 
accomplished absolutely nothing. 

The last occupation of the Confederate Congress appears to have been 
a sharp recriaiination between it and President Davis, as to the responsi- 
bility for the low condition of the public defences. A raging debate took 
place in secret session of the Senate. It was charged that the President 
had resisted all measures looking to the restoration of public confidence 
and the energetic administration of military affairs ; that he had robbed 
tlie conscription of its legitimate fruits, by a weak and corruj^t system of 
details ; and the statistics of the conscription bureau were brought up to 
show that east of the Mississippi River, twenty-two thousand and thii'ty- 
five men had been detailed by executive authority, and so much subtracted 
from the strength of the Confederate armies by a single measure of the 
President's favour. 

When in secret session, confidence in the President's military adminiiS' 



666 THE LOST CAUSE. 

tration was put to the test, on the proposition to take the control and 
conduct of the armies from his hands, it was found that his party had 
dwindled down to an insignificant number, and that many wlio had pre- 
viously supported him in much of evil report, now joined in recording the 
verdict of incompetency against him. When the vote came to be taken 
upon the proposition to put Lee in command of all the Confederate armies, 
Senator Henry of Kentucky, long the constant and intelligent friend of 
President Davis — indeed the leader of his party in the Confederate Sen- 
ate — felt constrained to vote for this important change in the Administra- 
tion of the Southern Confederacy. On the occasion of a social visit to the 
family of the President, he was called to task by Mrs, Davis, who bitterly 
inveighed against the purpose of Congress to diminish the power of her 
husband. She spoke with a spirit so extraordinary, that her words were 
well remembered. "If I were Mr. Davis," she said, " I would die or be 
hunac before I would submit to the humiliation." 

The man who was by general assent leader of the Congressional party 
against the President, was Senator Wigfall, of Texas. He had one of the 
largest brains in the Confederacy. He was a man of scarred face and 
fierce aspect, but with rare gifts of oratory ; in argument he dealt blows 
like those of the sledge-hammer ; he was bitter in his words, his delivery 
was careless and slovenly to affectation, but some of his sentences were 
models of classic force, and as clear-cut as the diamond. The terrible de- 
nunciations of this extraordinary man will be remembered by those who 
visited the halls of legislation in Richmond ; but the newspapers were afraid 
to publish his speeches, beyond some softened and shallow sketches of the 
reporters. It is a pity that all of this splendid, fiery oratory, which might 
have matched whatever we know of historical invective, has been lost to 
the world. It is only now in the faint reflection of these censures of 
President Davis, we may study the character of the man who, while he did 
much to ornament the cause of the Confederacy, yet persisted to the last 
in a long course of practical errours, and was dead alike to censure and 
expostulation. 

President Davis had a great reputation in the Confederacy for a certain 
sort of firmness. He was almost inaccessible to the advice and argument 
of those who might aspire to intellectual equality, and possibly dispute 
with him the credit of public measures. No man could receive a delega- 
tion of Congressmen, or any company of persons who had advice to give, or 
suggestions to make, with such a well-bred grace, with a politeness so stud- 
ied as to be almost sarcastic, with a manner that so plainly gave the idea 
that his company talked to a post. But history furnishes numerous ex- 
amples of men who, firm as flint in public estimation, and superiour to 
the common addresses of humanity, have yet been as wax in the hands ol 
small and unworthy favourites. Severest tyrants have been governed hs 



MALADMINISTRATION OF TRESIDENT DAVIS. G57 

women and court-jesters. President Davis, firm, cold, severe to those who 
from position or merit sliould have been admitted into his counsels, was 
notoriously governed by his wife ; had dismissed the Quarter-Master Gen- 
eral of the Confederacy, on account of a w^oman's quarrel and a criticism 
of Mrs. Davis' figure ; surrounded himself with and took into his housel old 
and intimate confidence men who had been " Jenkinses " and court-cor- 
respondents in Washington; was imposed upon by "travelled gentlemen" 
and obsequious adventurers ; and frequently placed in the most important 
commands and positions in the Confederacy, men who liad no other claim 
on his favour, than an acquaintance at West Point, or some social pleas- 
antry in Washington. Those who knew Mr. Davis best testified that he 
was the weakest of men, on certain sides of his character, and that he had 
a romantic sentimentalisrn, which made him the prey of preachers and 
women. John M. Daniel, the editor of the Richmond Exaviiner — a single 
press so powerful in the Confederacy, that it was named " the fourth 
estate " — once remarked to Senator Wigfall, that the President was con- 
temptibly W'Cak ; that his eyes often filled with tears on public occasions ; 
and that a man Avho cried easily was unfit for a ruler. " I do not know 
about that," said the rugged Texas Senator ; " there are times in every 
man's life, when it is better to take counsel of the heart than the head." 
" Well," replied Daniel, " I have only to say that any man whose tears lie 
shallow, is assuredly weak and unreliable. For myself, I admire the 
manner of the austere Romans : when they wept, the face was turned 
away and the head covered with the mantle." 

It must be admitted that in the Inst periods of the war, the influence 
of President Davis was almost entirely gone, and that the party whicli 
supported him was scarcely anything more than that train of followers 
which always fawns on power and lives on patronage. There was a large 
party in the Confederacy, tliat now accepted its downfall as an inevitable 
result, in view of what stared them in tho face, that all the public meas- 
ures of Mr. Davis' administration had come to be wrecks. The foreign 
relations of the Confederacy were absurdities ; its currency was almost 
worthless rags ; its commissariat was almost empty ; its sj-stem of con- 
scription was almost like a sieve for water. Surely when all these wrecks 
of a great system of government lay before the eyes, it was no longer pos- 
sible to dispute the question of maladminstration, debate the competency 
of President Davis, and give him a new lease of public confidence. 

Much had been imagined in Richmond of propositions for peace nego- 
tiations, vaguely reported as pending in secret session of Congress. But 
this part of the secret history of the Confederacy is easily told ; covers no 
very important facts ; and will disappoint the reader, who may have ex- 
pected from these chambers of mystery some startling revelations. 

The propositions for pacification in the last Confederate Congress, 
42 



C58 THE LOST CAUSE. 

never came to a practical point, and were loose efforts indicative of ita 
weak, and bewildered mind. None of these propositions ever originated in 
the Confederate Senate ; no vote was ever taken there ; they came from 
the House and were generab'ties. 

Ahnost during the entire period of the war, there had been a certain 
Union party in some of the States of the Confederacy. Its sentiment was 
uniform during the term of its existence ; but its designs varied at dif 
ferent stages of the war. Early in 1863, a party organization was secretly 
proposed in Georgia, to introduce negotiations with the enemy on the part 
of the States separately, without regard to their Confederate faith. It was 
supposed that the excessive vanity of Gov. Brown could be easily used in 
this matter ; and he was weak enough to give his ear to the coarsest flat- 
tery and to believe what a charlatan told bin}, that " he (Gov. Brown) 
held the war in the hollow of his hand." The party of State negotiation 
obtained a certain hold in Georgia, in Northern Alabama, and in parts of 
North Carolina; but the great object was to secure the Legislature of 
Yirginia, and for a long period an active and persistent influence was used 
to get the prestige of Yirginia's name for this new project. But it failed. 
The intrigue caught such third-rate politicians as^ickham, and such chaft* 
as James Lyons, and men who had balanced all their lives between North 
and South. But this was a low order of Virginians. In the last stages of 
the war, the Legislature of Virginia was besieged with every influence in 
favour of separate State negotiation with the Federal Government ; pro- 
positions were made for embassies to Washington ; but the representative 
body of the proudest State in the Confederacy was true to its great histor- 
ical trust, and preferred that Virginia should go down to posterity proudly, 
starkly, with the title of a subjugated people, rather than a community 
which bartered its Confederate faith, its honour, and its true glory for the 
small measure of an enemy's mercy, and the pittance of his concessions. 
The deliberate choice of Virginia, in the very last period of the war, was 
to stand or fall by the fortune of the Confederate arms, holding her un- 
tarnished honour in her hands, and committing to history along with the 
record of success or of disaster the greatest and most spotless name of 
modern times. 

In the month of January, 1865, Virginia raised her voice for the last 
time in the war, and gave ofiicial expression to her heroic choice. In a 
public letter of the two Houses of her Legislature to President Davis, it 
was then declared : " The General Assembly of Virginia desire in tliis crit- 
ical period of our aflairs, by such suggestions as occur to them, and by the 
dedication, if need be, of the entire resources of the Commonwealth to the 
common cause, to strengthen our hands, and to give success to our strug- 
gle for liberty and independence." The reply of President Davis waa 
noble. Almost his last official writing was a tribute to the grand State of 



PROPOSITION TO AKM THE SLAVES. 659 

Virginia. To the presiding officer of her Legishitiire, he wrote : '' Your as- 
surance is to me a source of the highest gratification ; and while conveying 
to you my thanks for the expression of the confidence of tlie General As* 
Bembly in ray sincere devotion to my country and sacred cause, 1 must 
beg permission, in return, to bear witness to the uncalculating, unhesitating 
spirit witli which Virginia has, from the moment when she first drew the 
sword, consecrated the blood of her children and all her material resources 
to the achievement of the object of our struggle." 

If the spirit of Virginia had animated the entire Confederacy, a cause 
now prostrate might have been still erect and in arms, and perhaps trium- 
phant. For after all, the main condition of the success of the Confederacy 
was simply resolution^ the quality that endures ; and as long as the people 
were resolved to be free, there was no military power that could have been 
summoned by the enemy, to bring under subjection a country occupying 
60 many square miles, and so wild and difficult as that of the South. The 
mind may easily discover many causes that concurred in the decline and 
downfall of the Southern Confederacy, and contributed something to the 
catastrophe ; but one rises uppermost, and, for the purposes of the expla- 
nation, is sufficient and conclusive — the general demoralization of the peo- 
ple, and that demoralization consequent upon such a want of confidence in 
the administration of President Davis, as was never before exhibited be- 
tween a people and its rulers in a time of revolution. He who takes broad 
and enlightened views of great historical results, and is not satisfied to let 
his mind rest on secondary causes and partial explanations, will ascribe 
the downfall of the Southern Confederacy to a general breakng down of 
the public virtue, and the debasement of a people "\\ho, having utterly lost 
hope in their rulers, and having no heart for a new experiment, descend 
to tame and infamous submission to what they consider fortune. 

"We may properly add here some considerations of an extraordinary 
measure to restore the fortunes of the Confederacy, indicative, indeed, of 
the desperate condition of the country, and of the disposition of the gov- 
ernment to catch at straws. Throughout the entire session of the last 
Congress in Hichmond there was an ill-natured debate of a proposition to 
arm the slaves, and thus repair the strength and organization of the 
armies. The circumstances in which this proposition was discussed 
showed plainly enough that the yield of the conscription law had been 
practically exhausted, and were the occasion of prejudicial dissensions, 
which contributed to the overthrow of the Confederacy. It may easily be 
calculated that out of three million slaves, two hundred thousand might 
have been spared, and brought into the field. This addition, if made 
some time ago, might have turned the scale in favour of the South, con- 
sidering how evenly the balance hung in the early campaigns of the war. 
But the time for this measure was past ; soldiers could not be impro- 



660 THE LOST CAUSE. 

vised ; there was no time to drill and perfect negro recruits before the re* 
sumption of tlie active and decisive campaign ; and it is a striking evi- 
dence of the shiftlessness of the Confederate Government and the imprac- 
ticability of the Congress, that there should have been debated a bill to 
put two hundred thousand negroes in the Confederate armies at a time 
when there were not five thousand spare arms in the Confederacy and our 
returned prisoners could not actually find muskets with which to resume 
their places in the field. 

Whatever may have been the general merits of the question of enlist- 
ing the negro and competing with the enemy in this branch of the recruit 
ing service, the time and circumstances in which the measure was actual- 
ly discussed in Richmond rendered it impracticable and absurd, and gave 
occasion to a controversy which, however barren of proper results, created 
parties and drew lines of exasperated prejudice through diff'erent classes 
of the people. The country, in its exhausted state, could not half feed 
and clothe the few soldiers left in the ranks. Hence, under all possible 
circumstances, the negroes could but add to the painful embarrassments 
already existing. The policy of the government in this, as well as nearly 
all its measures, was lamentably weak and short-sighted. To suppose that 
it could accomplish with negro soldiers what it had totally failed to do 
with the white, who had a much greater interest in the issue, was su- 
premely absurd. Tlie actual results of the legislation of Congress on the 
subject were ridiculously small, and after the pattern of all its other pro- 
ductions in its last session — a pretence of doing something, yet so far be- 
low the necessities of the case, as to be to the last degree puerile, absurd, 
and contemptible. The proposition to arm negroes was made in Novem- 
ber, 186t1: ; it was debated until March, 1865 ; and the result was a weak 
compromise on the heel of the session by which the question oi emancipa- 
tion as a reward for the negroes' services was studiously excluded, and the 
President simply authorized to accept from their masters such slaves as 
they might choose to dedicate to the military service of the Confederacy. 

Such paltry legislation indeed, may be taken as an indication of that 
vague desperation in the Confederacy which grasped at shadows ; which 
conceived great measures, the actual results of which were yet insignifi- 
cant ; which showed its sense of insecurity — and yet, after all, had not 
nerve enough to make a practical and persistent efibrt at safety. 



CPIAPTER XL. 

«Kir. Sherman's new base at savannah. — he prepares to march theottgh the oabo- 

LINAS. GEN. grant's FIRST IDEA TO BRING SHERMAN's ARMY TO VIRGINIA BY WATER. — 

OPENING OF THE CAROLINA CAMPAIGN. HOWARD'S MOVEMENT TOWARDS CHARLESTON. — 

THE LINE OF THE SALKAHATCHIE TAKEN. SLOCUM THREATENS AUGUSTA. — JUNCTION Of 

THE TWO COLUMNS IN THE VICINITY OF THE AUGUSTA AND CHARLESTON RAILROAD. — 
SCENES OF LICENSE AND PLUNDER ON SHERMAN's MARCH. — SAVAGE ATROCITIES. — THH 
TRACK OF FIRE. — SHEKMAn's " BUMMERS." — WHAT WAS THOUGHT OF THEM IN WASHING- 
TON. SHERMAN TURNS HIS COLUMNS ON COLUMBIA. DISPOSITION OF THE CONFEDERATF 

FORCES BETWEEN AUGUSTA AND CHARLESTON. WHY COLUMBIA WAS NOT DEFENDED. — 

GALLANTRY OF GEN. WADE HAMPTON. SACK AND DESTRUCTION OF COLUMBIA. — SHER- 

MAn's SOLEMN PROMISE TO THE MAYOR. — ROBBERY AND OUTRAGE IN THE STREETS. THi 

CATHOLIC CONVENT. SOME OF THE FEDERAL SOLDIERS TELL OF THE PROPOSED DESTRUO 

TION OF THE TOWN. — IT IS FIRED IN TWENTY PLACES. — HORROURS OF THE CONFLAGRA 
TION. — SCENES OF MISERY AND RUIN. — PROOFS THAT SHERMAN WAS RESPONSIBLE FOB 

THE FIRE. ARRAY OF EVIDENCE ON THIS SUBJECT. — FALL OF CHARLESTON. — THE CITY 

EVACUATED BY HARDEE. — OCCASION OF DELAY BY PRESIDENT DAVIS. — AN EXPLOSION 

AND CONFLAGRATION. — APPEARANCE OF THE CITY AFTER FOUR YEARS OF CONFLICT. 

CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. FALL OF WILMINGTON. THE ENEMy's VIEWS OF THE IMPOR- 
TANCE OF WILMINGTON. HOW IT WAS TO BE USED A3 ANOTHER BASE OF OPERATIONS 

TOWARDS RICHMOND. ITS CAPTURE AUXILIARY TO SHERMAN's MOVEMENT. THE FIRST 

EXPEDITION AGAINST IT. — BUTLEr's POWDER-SHIP. FAILURE OF THE EXPEDITION. THE 

BUTLER-GRANT CONTROVERSY. — SECOND EXPEDITION AGAINST WILMINGTON. — GEN. BRAGG 
AGAIN ON THE MILITARY STAGE. — HOW THE ENEMY EFFECTED A LANDING ABOVE FORT 
FISHER. — WANT OF VIGILANCE ON THE PART OF THE CONFEDERATES. — GEN. HOKE FLANKED 
AND RETREATS. THE FORT TAKEN BY ASSAULT. CO-OPERATION OF THE ENEMY's FLEET. 

its terrible fire. gen. bragg evacuates wilmington. grant s instructions 

to schofield to co-operate with sherman. — the campaign in north carolina. — 
ouerman moves apparently towards charlotte, and deflects to fayetteville. 
— movement of the co-operating columns from wilmington and newbern. — gen. 
bragg engages the enemy near kinston. success of the confederates. — ar- 
rival of schofield and terry at goldsboro'. — sherman pushes on there. — gen. 
Johnston's command, and distribution of the confederate forces. — hardee 

LOSES two-thirds OF HIS ARMY BY DESERTIONS. — HE ENGAGES THE ENEMY NEAR 
AVERYSRORO', and IS COMPELLED TO FALL BACK. — THE ENGAGEMENT AT BENTONVILLH. 
—JOHNSTON FIGHTS TWO CORPS OF THE ENEMY AND KILPATRICK's CAVALKY WITH FOUR- 



662 THE LOST CAUSE. 

TEEX THOUSAND MEN. — SUCCESS ON THE CONFEDERATE EIGHT. — JOHNSTON HOLDS HIS 
GROUND AGAINST THE WHOLE OF SHERMAN'S ARMY, AND RETREATS DELIBERATELY TO 

SMITDFIELD. SHERMAN's ARRIVAL AT GOLDSBORO'. OONFEEENCE AT CITY POINT OF 

6UERMAN, GRANT AND PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 

In capturing Savannali, Sherman not only obtained a great prize in 
ordnance and cotton, which, after a fashion somewhat Oriental, he desig- 
nated as a " Christmas gift " to his master in Washington. He also ob- 
tained a position of great military value. From the banks of the Savannah 
Kiver, he beheld opened before him all the avenues into and through 
South Carolina, and discovered a new route, reaching to what had now 
become the last and contracted theatre of war in the Confederacy. The 
Northern newspapers declared that when Sherman's legions looked across 
the Savannah to the shores of Carolina, they sent up a " howl of delight." 
There was a terrible gladness in the realization of so many hopes and 
wishes — in seeing the most hated State of the South almost prostrate, and 
offering the prospect of outrage with impunity. 

It had been the first idea of Gen. Grant, anticipating the arrival of 
Sherman at Savannah, that, after establishing a base on the sea-coast, with 
necessary garrison to include all his artillery and cavalry, he should come 
by water to City Point with the remainder of his command, to ensure the 
capture of Lee's army or to smother it with numbers. But this plan of 
operations was changed. " On the 18th of December," writes Gen. Grant, 
" having received information of the defeat and utter rout of Hood's army 
by Gen. Thomas, and that, owing to the great difficulty of procuring ocean 
transportation, it would take over two months to transport Sherman's 
army, and doubting whether he might not contribute as much towards the 
desired result by operating from where he was, I wrote to him to that 
effect, and asked him for his views as to what would be best to do. A few 
days after this I received a communication from Gen, Sherman, of date of 
16th of December, acknowledging the receipt of my order of the 6th, and 
informing me of his preparations to carry it into effect as soon as he could 
get transportation. Also, that he had expected upon reducing Savannah, 
instantly to march to Columbia, South Carolina, thence to Raleigh, and 
thence to report to me ; but that this would consume about six weeks' 
time after the fall of Savannah, whereas by sea he could probably reach 
me by the middle of January. The confidence he manifested in this letter 
of being able to march up and join me, pleased me ; and, without waiting 
for a reply to mj letter of the 18th, I directed him, on the 28tli of Decem- 
ber, to make preparations to start, as he proposed, without delay, to break 
n\) the railroads in North and South Carolina, and join the armies operat- 
ing against Richmond, as soon as he could." 

The middle of January saw Sherman's troops actually in motion for 
the Carolina campaign. His right wing, under Howard, was taken by 



BHERMAn's CAEOLmA CAMPAIGN. 663 

\\Atcr to Beaufort, where it began to move up the Charleston Railroad; 
while the left wing, under Slocum, with Kilpatrick's cavalry, was to cross 
tlie Savannah at Sister's Feny, and move up towards Augusta. The de- 
eign of this disposition of forces was to confuse tlie Confederates as to 
Sherman's real objective point, and divide their forces at Augusta from 
those at Charleston and its vicinity, under the impression that each place 
was threatened ; thus preventing their concentration, which might readily 
make the rivers successive lines of defence, and eluding any opposition imtil 
he had passed Columbia, which was really his first objective point. 

Howard's movement on the right threatened Charleston and Branch- 
ville ; and while one division remained at Pocotaligo to keep up the ap- 
pearance of marching on Charleston by the railroad bridge near that point, 
the remainder of the command moved up the Salkahatchie River, crossed, 
almost without opposition, what might have been made a line of strong 
defence, and pushed on for the Augusta and Charleston Railroad. On the 
6th February, Howard occupied two points on this railroad, at Ramburg 
and at Midway, and commenced destroying the track, Slierman's left 
wing had struck the road further up, towards Augusta, and had also com- 
menced the work of destruction. 

In reaching this important line of communication, Sherman's march 
had been tracked by fire. The well-known sight of columns of black 
smoke attested its progress. In Georgia not many dwelling-houses were 
burned ; in South Carolina the rule was the other way, and positively 
everything was given to destruction and pillage. The country was convert- 
ed into one vast bonfire. The pine forests w^ere fired, the resin factories were 
tired, the public buildings and private dwellings were fired. The middle 
of the finest day looked black and gloomy, for a dense smoke arose on all 
sides, clouding the very heavens. At night the tall pine trees seemed so 
many pillars of fire. 

The scenes of license and plunder w'hich attended these conflagrations 
were even more terrible. Long trains of fugitives lined the roads, wnth 
women and children, and horses and stock and cattle, seeking refuge from 
the pursuers. Long lines of wagon? covered the highways. Half-naked 
people cowered from the winter under bush-tents in the thickets, under the 
eaves of houses, under the railroad sheds, and in old cars left them along 
the route. Habitation after habitation, village after village, sent up its 
signal flames to the others, and lighted the sky with crimson horrours. 
Granaries were emptied, and where the grain was not carried off*, it was 
strewn to waste under the feet of the cavaby, or consigned to the fire Mdiich 
consumed the dwelling. The roads were covered with butchered cattle, 
hogs, mules, and the costliest furniture. Valuable cabinets, rich pianos, 
were not only hewn to pieces, but bottles of ink, turpentine, oil, whatever 
eould efface or destroy, w^as employed to defile and ruin. Horses were 



6Q4: THE LOST CAUSE. 

ridden into tlie houses. Beautiful homesteads of the parish gentr}-, with 
their wonderful tropical gardens, were ruined. Ancient dwellings of black 
cypress one hundred yeai-s old, were given to the torch as recklessly as 
wei-e the rude hovels. Choice pictures and works of art, from Europe, 
select and numerous libraries, objects of peace wholly, were all destroyed. 
The inhabitants were left to starve, compelled to feed only upon the garb- 
age to be found in the abandoned camps of the soldiers. The corn scraped 
up from the spots where the horses fed, was the only means of life left to 
thousands lately in affluence. 

Sherman had in his army a service which he seems proud to have ex- 
hibited as a novel and unique feature — that of so-called " bummers." The 
wretches thus curiously designated, were allowed as irregular foragers to 
eat up and plunder the country, often going twenty miles from the main 
columns to burn, to steal, to commit nameless crimes, always assured of 
welcome to the main body if they returned with horses embellished with 
strings of poultry or stolen vehicles laden with supplies. How far this 
worse than brigandish service was recognized by Gen. Sherman may be 
judged from the fact that, when at the close of the war, his army had a 
triumphal procession in "Washington, the department of " bummers " was 
represented in the line ; and the crowd of admirers that pressed upon it 
was excessively entertained by men on scraggy mules, laden with broken 
furniture and household goods, representing the prowess of cut-throats 
and thieves.* 

* A correspondent of the New York Herald, who accompanied Sherman's march through the 
Carolinas, gives the following definition of " the bummer :" 

" Any man who has seen the object that the name applies to, will acknowledge that it was ad- 
mirably selected. Fancy a ragged man, blackened by the smoke of many a pine-knot fire, mount- 
ed on a scraggy mule, without a saddle, with a gun, a knapsack, a butcher-knife, and a plug hat, 
stealing his way through the pine forests far out on the flanks of a column, keen on the scent of 
rebels, or bacon, or silver spoons, or com, or anything valuable, and you have him in your mind. 
Think how you would admire him if you were a lone woman, with a family of small children, far 
from help, when he blandly inquired where you kept your valuables. Think how you would smile 
when he pried open your chests with his bayonet, or knocked to pieces your tables, pianos, and 
chairs, tore your bed-clothing in three-inch strips, and scattered them about the yard. The " bum- 
mers " say it takes too much time to use keys. Colour is no protection from these roughrideri 
They go through a negro cabin, in search of diamonds and gold watches, with just as much free- 
dom and vivacity as they " loot " the dwelling of a wealthy planter. They appear to be possessed 
of a spirit of " pure cussedness." One incident of many will illustrate : A bummer stepped into a 
house aad inquired for sorghum. The ady of the house presented a jug, which he said was too 
heavy ; so he merely filled his canteen. Then taking a huge wad of tobacco from his mouth, ha 
thrust it into the jug. The lady inquired, in wonder, why he spoiled that which he did not want. 
'Oh, some feller'll come along and taste that sorghum, and think you've poisoned him ; then he'll 
burn your d — d old house." There are hundreds of these mounted men with the column, and they 
go everywhere. Some of them are loaded down with silver-ware, gold coin, and other valuables. 
I hazard nothing in saying three-fifths (in value) of the personal property of the counties wo hav« 
passed through were taken by Sherman's army." 



BACK AKD DESTRUCTION OF COLUMBIA. 666 

At our last account of tlie stages of Sheniian''s march be had gained the 
peninsula formed by the Salkaliatcbie and Edisto Rivers, and bad now the 
choice of going to Augusta or Charleston. lie declined both places. In 
his othcial report, be says : " Without wasting time, or labour on Brancii- 
ville or Charleston, which I knew the enemy could no longer hold, I turned 
all the columr.s straight on Columbia." On the IGth February, his ad- 
vance was drawn up on the banks of tbe Sabida in front of Columbia. 

It had been hoped to the last by tbe people of Columbia that the 
town would be vigorously defended, and made a point of decisive contest 
in Sherman's pathway. But the old, wretched excuse of want of concen- 
tration of the Confederate forces was to apply here. Gen. Hardee was not 
the man to grasp the business of a large army, and he had never had his 
forces well in hand. The remnants of Hood's army, the corps of Cheatham 
and Stewart, had been brought to Augusta, to find that Sherman had 
given tbe cold shoulder to it, and moved down the railroad. On tbe lower 
part of the road, Hardee could not be persuaded tbat Charleston was not 
tbe chief object of Sherman's desires, and so lay behind his fortifications, at 
Branchville, to protect it. In this uncertainty of purpose tliere was no 
force afield suflicient to check Sherman's course. The onl}^ Confederate 
troops which contested his advance upon Columbia consisted of tbe mount- 
ed men of Hampton, AVbeeler, Butlerj etc., and, althougb they made stub- 
born head against the enemy, their opposition could not, of course, be 
more than that of severe skirmishing. 

Yet, to the last moment, it was hoped Columbia might be saved. It 
was asserted that the corps of Cheatham and Stewart were making forced 
marches, with a view to a junction with the troops under Beauregard, and 
such was the spirit of tbe Confederate troops, and one of the Generals at 
least, that almost at the moment when Sherman's advance was entering 
the town, Hampton's cavalry was in order of battle, and only waiting the 
command to cbarge it. But the horrours of a street fight in a defenceless 
city, filled with women and children, M-ere prudently avoided ; and the 
Confederate troops were drawn off from the scene at the very hour when 
the Federals were entering it. The gallant and chivalrous Hampton was 
eager to do battle to the last ; when it Avas proposed to display a white 
flag from the tower of the City Hall, be threatened to tear it down ; he 
reluctantly left the city, and so slowly tbat a portion of bis command 
passed on the road to Winnsboro' in sight of the advance column of the 
enemy, giving it the idea of a flank movement of cavalry. 



SACK AND DESTKUCTION OF COLUMBIA. 

Columbia was surrendered to the enemy in the morning of the 17th 



666 THE LOST CAUSE. 

February, by tlie mayor, Mr. Goodwyn, who asked for the citizens " the 
treatment accorded by the nsages of civilized warfare." Sherman 
promised this. As night approached, perceiving that the mayor was ex- 
liausted by his labours of the day, he counselled him to retire to rest, say- 
ino- : " Kot a finger's breadth, Mr. Mayor, of your city shall be harmed. 
You may lie down to sleep, satisfied that your town shall be as safe in my 
hands as if wholly in your own." Such was very nearly the language in 
which he spoke ; such was the substance of it. He added : " It will be- 
come my duty to destroy some of the public or Government buildings ; but 
I will reserve this performance to another day. It shall be done to-mor- 
row, provided the day be calm." With this assurance the mayor retired. 

But the work of pillage had begun when the Federal troops had first 
reached the head of Main street. Stores were broken open, and the con- 
tents strewn on the side-walk ; citizens were robbed in the street ; no one 
felt safe in his own dwelling.*. Kobbery was going on at every corner — 

* We are indebted for many incidents of the sack and destruction of Columbia to a publication 
in the Daily Phcenix. We group some of these incidents to make a partial picture of outrages in- 
numerable and almost indescribable: 

" At an early hour in the day, almost every house was visited by groups, averaging in number 
from two to six persons. Some of these entered civilly enough, but pertinaciously entered, in some 
cases, begging for milk, eggs, bread and meat — in most cases, demanding them. In the house, 
parties less meek of temper than these pushed their way, and the first intimation of their presence, 
as they were confronted at the entrance, was a pistol clapped at the head or bosom of the owner, 
whether male or female. 

" ' Your watch ! ' ' Your money ! ' was the demand. Frequently, no demand was made. Rare- 
ly, indeed, was a word spoken, where the watch or chain, or ring or bracelet, presented itself con- 
spicuously to the eye. It was incontinently plucked away from the neck, breast or bosom. Hun- 
dreds of women, still greater numbers of old men, were thus despoiled. The slightest show of re- 
sistance provoked violence to the person. ' 

" The venerable Mr. Alfred Huger was thus robbed in the chamber and presence of his family, 
and in the eyes of an ahnost dying wife. He otfered resistance, and was collared and dispossessed 
by violence. 

" In the open streets the pickpockets were mostly active. A frequent mode of operating was 
by first asking you the hour. If thoughtless enough to reply, producing the watch or indicating 
its possession, it was quietly taken from hand or pocket, and transferred to the pocket of the ' other 
gentleman,' with some such remark as this: 'A pretty little watch that. I'll take it myself ; it 
just suits me.' And the appropriation followed ; and if you hinted any dislike to the proceeding, 
a grasp was taken of your collar, and the muzzle of a revolver put to your ear. 

•' The venerable Mr. H — stood ready, with his couteau de chasse made bare in his bosom, 

lovering around the persons of his innocent daughters. Mr. , on beholding some too familiar 

approach to one of his daughters, bade the man stand oflf at the peril of his life ; saying that while 
he submitted to be robbed of property, he would sacrifice life without reserve — his own and that of 
the assailant — before his child's honour should be abused. 

" Mr. James G. Gibbes with difficulty, pistol in hand, and onlj with the assistance of a Yanke* 
officer, rescued two young women from the clutches of as many ruffians." 

" A Mrs. J was but recent' y confined. Her condition was ver/ helpiess. Her life hung 



FEDERAL OUTRAGES. 667 

in nearly every house. It was useless to complain. Ci'owds of escaped 
prisoners, soldiers, and negroes, intoxicated with their new-born liberty, 



upon a hair. The men were apprised of all the facts in the case. They burst into the chamDor-— 
took the rings from the lady's fingers — plucked the watch from beneath her pillow, and so over- 
whelmed her with terrour, that she sunk under the treatment, surviving their departure but a day 
or two. 

" In several instances parlours, articles of crockery, and even beds, were used by the soldiera 
as if they were water-closets. In one case, a party used vessels in this way, then put them on the 
bed, fired at and smashed them to pieces, emptying the filthy contents over the bedding. 

" In several cases, newly made graves were opened, the coffins taken out, broken open, in search 
of buried treasure, and the corpses left exposed. Every spot in grave-yard or garden, which 
seemed to have been recently disturbed, was sounded with sword, or bayonet, or ramrod, in tlie 
desperate search after spoil." 

A lady spoke indignantly to General Atkins, of Sherman's army, and said of that General, " He 
wars upon women ! " 

" Yes," said Atkins, " and justly. It is the women of the South who keep up this cursed rebel- 
lion. It gave us the greatest satisfaction to see those proud Georgia women begging crumbs from 
Yankee leavings ; and this will soon be the fate of all you Carolina women." 

Escorting a sad procession of fugitives from the burning dwellings, one of the soldiers said : 

" What a glorious sight ! " 

" Terribly so," said one of the ladies. 

" Grand ! " said he. 

" Very pitiful," was the reply. 

The lady added : 

" IIow, as men, you can behold the horrours of this scene, and behold the sufferings of these 
innocents, without terrible pangs of self-condemnation and self-loathing, it is difficult to con- 
ceive." 

" We glory in it ! " was the answer. " I tell you, madam, that when the people of the North 
hear of the vengeance we have meted out to your city, there will be one universal shout of rejoic- 
ing from man, woman and child, from Maine to Maryland." 

" You are, then, sir, only a fitting representative of your people." 

Another, who had forced himself as an escort upon a party, on the morning of Saturday, said, 
pointing to tlie thousand stacks of chimneys, "You are a curious people here in house-building. 
You run up your chimneys before you build the house." 

One who had been similarly impudent, said to a mother, who was bearing a child in her arms : 

'* Let me carry the baby, madam." 

" Do not touch him for your life," was the reply. " I would sooner hurl bim into the flames, 
and plunge in after him than that he should be polluted by your touch. Nor shall a child of mine 
ever have even the show of obligation to a Yankee ! " 

" Well, that's going it strong, by ; but I like your pluck. We like it d — e ; and you'll 

see us coming back after the war — every man of us — to get a Carolina wife. We hate jour men 
like h — 1, but we love your women ! " 

" We much prefer your hate, even though it comes in fire. Will you leave us, sir ? " 

It was not always, however, that our women were able to preserve their coolness and firmness 
under the assaults. We have quite an amusing story of a luckless wife, who was confronted by a 
Btalwart soldier, with a horrid oath and a cocked revolver at her head. 

** Your watch ! your money ! you d — d rebel b — h ! " 

The horrid oaths, the sudden demand, fierce look and rapid action, &d terrified her that sh* 
»ried out, "Oh! my G — d ! I have no watch, no money, except what's tied round my waist!" 

We need not aay how deftly the Bowie-knife was applied to loose the stays of the lady. 



668 THE LOST CAUSE. 

wnicli they looked upon as a license to do as tliej pleased, were parading 
the streets in groups. The rei^n of terrour did not fairly begin till night. 
In some instances, where parties complained of the misrule and robbery, 
Federal soldiers said to them, with a chuckle : " This is nothing. Wait 
till to-night, and you'll see h — 11." 

In the town of Columbia was a Catholic convent, the Lady Superioup 
of which had educated Gen. Sherman's daughter, and now laid claim to 
his protection for the young women in her charge. A guard of eight or 
ten men were detailed for the institution. But a Catholic officer in Sher- 
man's army visited the convent, warned the Lady Superiour of danger, 
and whispered to her, " I must tell you, my sister, Columbia is a doomed 
city." 

A few moments later, while Mayor Goodwyn was conversing with a 
Federal soldier, three rockets were shot up by the enemy from the capitol 
square. As the soldier beheld these rockets, he cried out : " Alas ! alas ! 
for your poor city ! It is doomed. Those rockets are the signal. The 
town is to be fired." In less than twenty minutes after, the flames broke 
out in twenty distinct quarters. 

Engines and hose were brought out by the firemen, but these were 
soon driven from their labours — which were indeed idle against such a 
storm of fire — by the pertinacious hostility of the soldiers ; the hose was 
hewn to pieces, and the firemen, dreading worse usage to themselves, left 
the field in despair. Meanwhile, the flames spread from side to side, from 
front to rear, from street to street. All the thoroughfares were quickly 
crowded with helpless women and children, some in their night-clothes. 
Agonized mothers, seeking their children, all aft'righted and terrified, were 
rushing on all sides fr(»m the raging flames and falling houses. Invalids 
had to be dragged fi'om their beds, and lay exposed to the flames and 
smoke that swept the streets, or to the cold of the open air in back yards. 

The scene at the convent was a sad one. The flames were fast encom- 
passing the convent, and the sisters, and about sixty terrified young ladies, 
huddled together on the streets. Some Christian people formed a guard 
around this agonized group of ladies, and conducted them to Sidney Park. 
Here they fancied to find security, as but few houses occupied the neigh- 
bourhood, and these not sufiiciently higb to lead to apprehension from the 
flames. But fire-balls were thrown from the heights into the deepest hol- 
lows of the park, and the wretched fugitives were forced to scatter, finding 
their way to other places of retreat, and finding none of them secure. 
Group after group, stream after stream of fugitives thus pursued their way 
through the paths of flaming and howling horrour, only too glad to fling 
themselves on the open ground, whither, in some cases, they had suc- 
ceeded in conveying a feather-bed or mattress. The malls, or open 
equares, the centres of the wide streets, were thus strewn with piles of bed* 



COLUMBIA IN KUINS. 669 

ding, on -which lay exhausted figures, or crouched women and childreii 
wild with terrour. Every hour of the niglit was fraught with scenes of 
horrour such as we have described. By midnight, every large block in 
the business j^ortion of the town was consumed. A lady said to an officer 
at her houfjc, somewhere about four o'clock in the morning : " In the name 
of God, sir, when is this work of hell to be ended ? " lie replied : " You 
will hear the bugles at sunrise, when a guard will enter the town and 
withdraw these troops. It will then cease, and not before." 

The sun rose with a wan countenance, peering dimly through the dense 
vapours whch seemed wholly to overspread the lirmament. The best and 
most beautiful portion of Columbia lay in ruins. Eighty-four squares of 
buildings had been destroyed, with scarcely the exception of a single 
house. The capitol building, six churches, eleven banking establislunents, 
the schools of learning, the shops of art and trade, of invention and manu- 
facture, shrines equally of religion, benevolence, and industry were all 
buried together in one congregated ruin. Nothing remained but the tall, 
spectre-looking chimneys. The noble -looking trees that shaded the streets, 
the flower-gardens that graced them, were blasted and withered by fire. 
On every side there were ruins and smoking masses of blackened walls, 
and between, in desolate groups, reclining on mattress, or bed, or earth, 
were wretched women and children gazing vacantly on the site of what 
had been their homes. Roving detachments of the soldiers passed around 
and among them. There were those who looked and lingered nigh, with 
taunt and sarcasm. Others there were, in whom humanity did not seem 
wholly extinguished ; and others again, to their credit be it said, who 
were truly sorrowful and sympathizing, who had labored for the safety 
of family and property, and who openly deplored the dreadful crime. 

An attempt has been made to relieve Gen. Sherman of the terrible 
censure of having deliberately fired and destroyed Columbia, and to 
ascribe the calamity to accident or to carelessness resulting from an 
alleged order of Gen. Hampton to burn the cotton in the city. This 
explanation is a tardy one, and has come only after Gen. Sherman has 
observed the horrour which this crime has excited in the world, and 
realized some of its terrible consequences. To the imputation against 
Gen. Hampton, that chivalrous officer, whose word friend nor foe ever 
had reason to dispute, has replied in a public letter : " I deny emphati- 
cally that any cotton was fired in Columbia by my order. I deny that 
the citizens ' set fire to thousands of bales rolled out into the streets.' 
I deny that any cotton was on fire when the Federal troops entered the 
city. * * * I jjledge myself to prove that I gave a positive order, 
by direction of Gen. Beauregard, that no cotton should be fired ; that not 
one bale was on fire when Gen. Sherman's troops took possession of the 
tity ; that he promised protection to the city, and that, in spite of his 



670 THE LOST CAUSE. 

solemn promise, lie burned the city to the ground, deliberately, system- 
atically and atrociously." 

The facts are, as we have seen, that Columbia was fired in twenty 
different places at one time ; that several hours before the commencement 
of the fire, a Federal officer had given warning at the Ursuline Convent 
that Columbia was doomed ; and that just before the conflagration a 
Federal soldier, pointing to a signal of rockets, declared to the Mayor 
that the city was to be fired. There are living witnesses to attest these 
facts. But it has also been pertinently asked : Why did Sherman's 
soldiers prevent the firemen from extinguishing the fire as they strove 
to do ? Why did they cut the hose as soon as it was brought into the 
streets ? Why did they not assist in extinguishing the flames ? Why, 
with twenty thousand men encamped in the streets, did they sufler mere 
stragglers, as the incendiaries were represented, to succeed in a work of 
such extent ? Every circumstance shows that the conflagration was 
deliberately planned ; that it was fed and protected by the soldiers ; 
while the universal plundering simultaneous with it went unchecked, 
and was plainly part of the object attained through the means of fire. 

The burning of Columbia was but of a piece with Sherman's record, 
and the attempt to exculpate him in this particular is but little consistent 
and plausible in view of his general conduct from the moment when he 
entered South Carolina. He had burned six out of every seven farm- 
houses on the route of his march. Before he reached Columbia, he had 
burned Blackville, Graham, Ramberg, Buford's Bridge, Lexington, and 
had not spared the humblest hamlet. After he left Columbia, he gave 
to the flames the villages of Allston, Pomaria, Winnsboro', Blackstock, 
Society Hill, and the towns of Camden and Cheraw. Surely when such 
was the fate of these places, the eflbrt is ill-made to show that an excep- 
tion was to be made in favour of the State capital of South Carolina, the 
especial and notorious object of the enemy's hate and revenge, and which, 
for days before the catastrophe, had been designated as " the promised 
boon of Sherman's army." 



FALL OF CHARLESTON. 

The march of Sherman, which traversed South Carolina, was decisive 
of the fate of Charleston. At Savannah, the Federal commander had 
been asked if he intended taking Charleston. He answered, " Yes ; but 
I shall not sacrifice life in its capture. If I am able to reach certain 
vital points, Charleston will fall of itself. If the people remain there, 
they must starve, that's all." 

The loss of Charleston was a severe trial to President Davis, who had 



CAPTtJKE OF FORT FISHEK. Q7\ 

a peculiar affection for tlie city. Even when Gen. Beauregard directed 
the evacuation of the city, so as to provide a force with which to fall 
upon Sherman, the President wrote such a despatch to Gen, Hardee, 
eomnianding in Charleston, as led him to suspend the evacuation, and 
obliged Beauregard to assume command, and to direct imperatively the 
measure to be completed. 

Gen. Hardee completed the evacuation of the city on the 17th Feb- 
ruary. He destroyed the cotton warehouses, arsenals, two iron-clads, 
and some vessels in the ship-yard ; but he was compelled to leave to the 
enemy all the heavy ordnance that could not be brought off, including 
two hundred pieces of artillery, which could only be spiked and tempo- 
rarily disabled. A terrible incident" of the evacuation, was an accidental 
explosion of powder in the large building at the depot of the North- 
western railroad, destroying several hundred lives. The building was 
blown into the air a whirling mass of ruins. From the depot the fire 
spread rapidly, and, communicating with the adjoining buildings, threat- 
ened destruction to that part of the city. Four squares, embracing the 
area bounded by Chapel, Alexander, Ciiarlotte and "Washington streets, 
were consumed before the conflagration was subdued. 

Charleston came into the enemy's possession a scarred and mutilated 
city. It had made a heroic defence for nearly four years ; for blocks 
not a building could be found that was exempt from the marks of shot 
and shell ; what were once fine houses, presented great gaping holes in 
the sides and roof, or were blackened by fire ; at almost every step were 
to be found evidences of destruction and ruin wrought by the enemy. 
After a display of heroism and sacrifice unexcelled in the war, this most 
famous city of the South fell, not by assault, or dramatic catastrophe, but 
in consequence of the stratagem of a march many miles away from it. 

The evacuation of Charleston having been successfully accomplished, 
Hardee and Beauregard retired to Charlotte, whither Cheatham was mak- 
ing his way fi'om Augusta to join them. 



CAPTUKE OF FORT FISHER — FALL OF WILMINGTON. 

An important branch of Sherman's expedition through the Carolinaa 
led from Wilmington. It Avas proposed by Gen. Grant to open still 
another base of operations towards Richmond, and with the capture of 
Wilmington, to effect an early communication with Sherman, and to sus- 
tain his march north by a co-operating column. Besides, it was important 
to get possession of Wilmington, as the most important sea-coast port left 
to the Confederates, through which to get supplies from abroad, and send 
cotton and other products out by blockade-runners. The Federal navy 



67'i THE LOST CAUSE. 

had been unable to seal the harbour, and Secretary "Welles had been forced 
to confess, that fifty fast Federal steamers had been quite unable to main- 
tain the blockade here. The theory of the enemy was that the nature of 
the outlet of Cape Fear River was such that it required watching for sc 
great a distance, that without possession of the land north of New Inlet, 
or Fort Fisher, it was impossible for the navy to entirely close the harbdar 
against the entrance of blockade runners. 

An expedition directed by Gen. Grant, in the close of December, 1864, 
to capture Fort Fisher, had failed of success. For this expedition there had 
been assembled in Hampton Koads, under command of Admiral Porter, 
what Gen. Grant designated as " the most formidable armada ever col- 
lected for concentration upon one given j)oint." The co-operating land 
force consisted of sixty-five hundred men, detached from Gen, Butler's 
command before Richmond. The expedition got off on the 13th Decem- 
ber, Accompanying it was a vessel loaded with a large quantity of 
powder, to be exploded as near the fort as possible ; Gen. Butler having 
obtained the singular idea of levelling the fort, or demoralizing the gar- 
rison by the shock of tlie explosion. The boat was blown up in the night 
of the 24th December, and attracted such little attention that the Con- 
federates supposed it to be nothing more than the bursting of one of the 
enemy's guns, and were never enlightened as to the object of the explosion 
until informed of it by Nortliern newspapers. 

Porter's fieet had already commenced a bombardment of the fort ; and 
on the 25th December, under cover of this fire, a landing was effected by 
the enemy without opposition, and a reconnoissance pushed up towards 
the fort. The result of the reconnoissance was that Gen. Butler declined 
to attack, and very suddenly ordered the re-embarkation of the troops 
and the return of the expedition. This conduct of Butler M^as the occa- 
sion of his removal from command, and of a sharp recrimination which 
ran through oflicial documents, newspapers, and even the lowest forms 
of personal controversy between himself and Gen. Grant, In a letter 
published in a I^orthern journal, Gen, Butler congratulated hiraelf that 
he had retired from command, without having on his skirts the blood of 
his soldiers needlessly sacrificed — referring to Grant's list of butcheries 
and utter disregard of life in the Yirginia campaign ; and it could be 
said, if his powder ship had proved a ridiculous toy, it was at least not 
so expensive as Grant's experiment with the mine at Petersburg. 

The fleet did not follow Butler's transports, and the persistence of 
Porter encouraged Grant to make another attempt to take Fort Fisher 
and secure Wilmington. He selected Gen. Terry to command the second 
expedition. The troops composing it consisted of the same that composed 
the former, with the addition of a small brigade numbering about fifteen 
hundred men, and a small siege train. Tlie expedition sailed from Fortress 



GEN. beagg's misfoetune. 673 

Monroe on the 6tli January, 1865, but, owing to the difficulties of the 
weather, did not reach its destination until the 12tli. 

Gen. Braxton S. Bragg appeared again on the military stage, thrust 
there by President Davis, in the second defence of Wilmington. A 
Yirginia newspaper announced the event irreverently, as follows : 
" Gen. Bragg has been appointed to command at Wilmington : Good- 
bye Wilmington ! " There was no confidence in this Confederate com- 
mander ; and although Fort Fisher had held out against a naval bom- 
bardment, and its garrison was largely increased when Bragg took 
command, it was very much feared that the enemy would obtain with 
him some new advantage, would effect some surprise, or succeed by some 
untoward event. 

These fears were to be exactly realized. Fort Fisher consisted of two 
fronts — the first, or land front, running across the peninsula, at this point 
seven hundred yards wide, was four hundred and eighty yards in length, 
while the second, or sea front, ran from the right of the first parallel to 
the beach, to the Mound Battery — a distance of thirteen hundred yards. 
The land front was intended to resist any attack from the north ; the sea 
front to prevent any of the enemy's vessels from running through New 
Inlet, or landing troops on Federal Point. 

It was evidently the important concern to prevent a landing of the 
enemy's troops, or to dislodge them as soon as they got ashore ; and 
Bragg's forces were disposed with that view. Gen. Hoke holding a line 
north of Fort Fisher. On the 13th January, Terry succeeded, under a 
heavy fire from the fleet, in landing several thousand troops on the sea- 
beach, some five or six miles above Fort Fisher. The place of landing 
was admirably selected ; the troops being disembarked just above the 
neck of the sound, intei-posing a small sm-face of water between them 
and an attacking force, or compelling such force to work around the 
lower extreme of the sound — either of which movements would have to 
be executed under the fire of the whole fleet. 

It was the purpose of Hoke to attack the enemy as soon as he advanced, 
and his cavalry was thrown out on his right flank, to observe the move- 
ments of the enemy, and report his first step towards establishing a line 
ftcross the neck of land to the river. But it was found the next morning, 
that through the imperfect vigilance of the Confederates, the enemy had 
laid out a second line. During the night his troops, passing between 
Hoke's cavalry, and threading their way through the thick marshy under- 
growth, made their way to the river, and next morning held an intrenched 
line on Hoke's right flank, extending nearly across the peninsula. Gen. 
Bragg at first gave the order to charge tlie enemy in his works, but after a 
close reconnoissance which discovered his force and position, determined 
to withdraw after reinforcing the fort, which was held by Gen. Whiting, 
43 



674 THE LOST CAUSE. 

with a garrison increased to about twentj-five hundred men. In the 
afternoon the enemy pushed a reconnoissance within five hundred yards 
of the fort. It seemed probable that troops could be got within two 
hundred yards of the work without serious loss ; and it was a matter 
of doubt with the enemy, whether the necessary ammunition could be sup- 
plied by the open beach, if regular approaches were determined on. It 
was decided to assault the next day. 

While these movements on land were taking place, the enemy's fleet 
had held Fort Fisher enveloped in a terrific tire for three days. More than 
four hundred guns poured torrents of shells and missiles on every spot. 
There were three divisions of the fleet — the first, led by the " Brooklyn," 
numbered one hundred and sixteen guns ; the second, by the " Minne- 
sota," one hundred and seventy-six guns ; and the third, composed of gun- 
boats, with one hundred and twenty-three guns. During the afternoon of 
the 15th January — the day appointed for the assault — this immense arm- 
ament poured in a concentric fire upon the fort ; and while the tossing 
clouds of smoke incessantly rolled up from the water, Terry organized his 
force for the assault — three deployed brigades following one another, at 
intervals of about three hundred yards, and each making its final rush for 
the west end of the land face of the fort. 

The rapid fire from the water prevented the Confederates from using 
either artillery or musketry, on the advancing lines of the enemy, until 
they had got within sixty yards of the fort, when the fire of the fleet lifted 
80 as not to involve the assaulting column. The Confederates were 
brought to the charge after having been packed in the bomb-proofs for fif- 
ty-six hours, many of them benumbed and exhausted. Capt. Braddy's 
company guarding the sally-port gave way. From seven to about ten 
o'clock at night, the fighting went on from traverse to traverse ; it was a 
hand-to-hand fight, a heroic defence, in which bravery, endurance and de- 
votion failed to overcome numbers. The enemy had not lost a man until 
he entered the fort, and the loss that he confessed to in the entire afiair of 
seven or eight hundred killed and wounded, must have taken place within 
its enclosures. The garrison at last driven from the fort, retreated down 
the peninsula to the cover of some works near the inlet. But further re- 
sistance was useless ; and about midnight. Gen. "Whiting surrendered him- 
self and men as j^risoners of war, numbering over eighteen hundred, the 
remainder of his force being killed or wounded. 

The fall of Fort Fisher ultimately decided the fate of Wilmington. It 
was followed by the blowing up of Fort Caswell, and the abandonment of 
the works on Smith's Island, which gave the enemy entire control of the 
mouth of the Cape Fear River. Fort Anderson, the main defence on the 
A-est bank of the river, was evacuated on the 19th February, on the ap- 
pearance of Porter's fleet before it, in conjunction with a land force under 



MOVEMENTS IN NORTH CAKOLINA, 675 

Sclioiield moving up both sides of the river. 'Wilmingtoii was occupied 
without resistance ; and the command of Gen. Bragg, which had remained 
idle tliere for more than a month (despite the earnest protest of Gen. 
Beauregard, who in vain had represented to President Davis that witli 
the fall of Fort Fisher Wilmington became useless, and that the command 
there should be used at the earliest possible moment in the field against 
Sherman), was at last moved to what had now become the dominant thea- 
tre of hostilities in the Carolinas. 

The new base which the enemy had now opened, was well defined by 
Gen. Grant as auxiliary to Sherman. The State of North Carolina, was 
constituted into a new military department, and Gen. Schofield, whose 
corps had been transferred here from' the Tennessee lines, was assigned to 
command. The following instructions were given him by Gen. Grant : 

" City Point, Va., January 31, 1865. 

General : Tour movements are intended as co-operative with Sherman's through the 
States of South and North Carolina, The first point to be attained is to secure Wil- 
mington, Goldsboro will then be your objective point, moving either from Wilmington 
or Newbem, or both, as you deem best. Should you not be able to reach Goldsboro, you 
will advance on the line or lines of raUway connecting that place with the sea-coast — as 
near to it as you can, building the road behind you. The enterprise under you has two 
objects : the first is to give Gen. Sherman material aid, if needed, in his march north : 
the second, to open a base of suppUes for him on his line of march. As soon, therefore, 
as you can determine which of the two points, Wilmington or Newbem, you can best use 
for throwing supplies to the interjour, you will commence the accumulation of twenty 
days' rations and forage for sixty thousand men and twenty thousand animals. You 
will get of these as many as you can house and protect to such point in the interiour as 
you may be able to occupy. ****** 



THE CAMPAIGN IN NORTH CAROLINA. 

When Sherman left beliind him the smoking ruins of Columbia, it was 
thought by the Confederates that he would move towards Charlotte, where 
all the rolling stock of tlie railroads destroyed had been run, and from 
which it could not be removed, on account of the railroad beyond that 
being of a difi:erent gauge. On the 21st February, Sherman passed through 
Winnsboro on the road to Charlotte ; but on the 23d, his army suddenly 
swung on a grand right wheel, and moved rapidly ofi' towards Fayetteville. 
Gn the 12th March, it reached Fayetteville. Meanwhile preparations had 
been made by the enemy on the coast, for a movement on Goldsboro in 
two columns — one from Wilmington, and the other from Newbern — and 
to repair the railroad leading there from each place, as well as to supply 
Sherman by Cape Fear Kiver toward Fayetteville, if it became necessary. 
The column from Newborn was attacked on the 8th March, near Kinston, 



676 ^ THE LOST CAUSE. 

by Gen. Bragg, with liis own troops and Hill's division of the Army of 
Tennessee. The enemy was completely routed, and fifteen hundred pris- 
oners taken. On the 9th March, Gen. Bragg found the enemy several 
miles in rear strongly entrenched, and, after a faint attack, drew off. 

On the 14th, this body of the enemy, under Schofield, crossed the 
ISTeuse Kiver, occupied Ivinstou, and entered Goldsboro on the 21st. Tha 
column from "Wilmington" reached Cox's Bridge on the Neuse River, ten 
miles above Goldsboro, on the 22d. 

It remained now for Sherman to keep the rendezvous and complete the 
combination. But to do so and make the last stage of his march, it was 
clear that he would have to do some more important and severe fighting 
than he had experienced since he and Johnston parted at Atlanta — the lat- 
ter General having been put in command of the Confederate forces in the 
Carolinas. It appeared indeed that a formidable army was at last collect- 
ing in his pathway. Beauregard at Charlotte, had been reinforced by 
Cheatham and the garrison at Augusta, and had had ample time to move 
in the direction of Kaleigh. Hardee had evacuated Charleston, in time to 
keep ahead of Sherman, and was moving to the same point. It was easy 
for Bragg and Hoke in North Carolina also to effect a junction with these 
forces, swelling them, it would be supposed, to a formidable army. But 
this army, which appeared so imposing in the enumeration of its parts, was 
no match for Sherman. When the enemy's campaign in South Carolina 
commenced, Hardee had eighteen thousand men. He reached Cheraw 
v«"ith eleven thousand, and Averysboro with about six thousand. Eleven 
hundred State troops left him between those places by order of Gov, Mag- 
rath of South Carolina ; but the balance of his great loss was due, almost 
entirely, to desertions. These figures are from an official source, and show 
without the aid of commentary how low had fallen the military organiza- 
tion and spirit of the Confederacy. 

On the 15th March Sherman put his army in motion from Fayetteville. 
In the narrow ground between Cape Fear River and Black Creek, which 
becomes Black River, and empties into the Cape Fear below Fayetteville,* 
Gen. Hardee was posted, his force consisting of two small divisions under 
Maj.-Gens. McLaws and Taliaferro. He held his ground, without difficulty, 
on the 16th. But at night, finding that the Federal right had crossed 
Black River and moved towards Goldsboro, and that the left was crossing 
the creek as if to turn his position, he abandoned it before daybreak, and 
reached Elevation, on the road to Smithfield, at noon of the 17th. 

On the 17th Gen. Bragg was encamped near Smithfield with Hoke's 
North Carolina division, four thousand seven hundred and seventy men. 
Lieut.-Gen. Stewart was in the same neighbourhood with nearly four thou- 
sand of the Army of Tennessee, under Maj.-Gens. Loring, D. H. Hill, and 
Stevenson. 



BATTLE OF BENTON VILLE. 677 

At daybreak of the 18th a report was received from Gen. Hampton, 
to the effect that the Federal army was moving on Goldsboro in two 
columns : the 15th and 17tli corps, on the direct road from Fayetteville to 
that place, and the 14th and 20th on that from Averysboro. By previous 
reports the former was nearly a day's march in advance of the latter, whicl] 
would probably reach the point opposite Bentonsville early on the 10th. 
That place is about two miles north of the road, and sixteen miles from 
Smithfield. By the State map the roads followed by the Federal troops 
are twelve miles apart here, and Elevation twelve miles from Bentonsville. 
Orders were immediately given for concentration there that evening. 
Bragg's and Stewart's troops reached the ground easily. But Hardee's 
were unable to do so. Bentonsville is incorrectly placed on the map, and 
its distance from Elevation much greater than is indicated, and no direct 
road could be found. Consequently Hardee arrived not until the morning of 
the 19th. In the mean time the enemy came up, and attacked Hoke's divi- 
sion, which had been formed across the road, Stewart's corps on its right, 
its own much thrown forward. This attack was so vigorous that Gen. 
Bragg called for aid, and McLaw's division then arriving, was sent to 
him ; the other, Taliaferro's, was placed on Stewart's right. Before these 
troops got into position, the attack on our left had been repulsed, as well as 
a subsequent one upon Loring's division. Hardee was then directed to 
charge with Stewart's troops and Taliaferro's division, the latter being 
thrown on the enemy's left flank. Bragg's troops were ordered to join in 
the movement successively, from right to left. 

On the right, where the ground was open, the attack was perfectly 
successful, driving the 14th co]-j)s back at least a mile and a half into dense 
thickets ; but the progress of the left was soon stopped in very thick woods 
by entrenchments. The fight began at three o'clock, and continued until 
dark. Wheeler's cavalry was to have fallen upon the rear of the Federal 
left ; but a swollen creek which intervened kept it out of action. After 
burying the dead as far as practicable at night, and removing his wounded 
and many of those of the enemy. Gen. Johnston resumed his first position. 

The battle — known as that of Bentonsville — although it had failed to 
fulfil what was probably Johnston's purpose, to cripple Sherman before he 
could effect a junction with Schofield, had been a most creditable affair for 
the Confederates. With fourteen thousand men they had encountered the 
] 4th and 20th corps of the enemy and Kilpatrick's cavalry, an aggregate 
probably of forty thousand men. 

On the 20th the whole Federal army was in Johnston's front, which 
was changed parallel to the road. The Confederates were compelled to 
hold their ground that day and the next, to cover the operation of carrying 
off their wounded. Sherman's whole army was before them, and made 
many partial attacks, all of which were repulsed. On the afternoon of the 



678 THK LOST CAUSE. 

21st, tlie ITth corps penetrated the thin line of cavalry wliich formed the 
Confederate left, and ahnost reached a bridge in rear of tlie centre, over 
which lay the only road left to Johnston. It was easily driven back by 
the reserve. 

Before daybreak on the 22d Gen. Johnston moved towards Smithfield, 
leaving a few wounded who were too much injured to bear removal. His 
loss in the three days was two hundred and twenty-four killed, one thou- 
sand four hundred and ninety-nine wounded, and more than three hundred 
prisoners. That of the enemy must have been much greater, as the Con- 
federates had the advantage in the fighting, and generally fought under 
cover. More than eight hundi-ed prisoners were reported. 

The junction of Sherman's and Schofi eld's forces was eflfected at 
Goldsboro' the next day. It made an army of more than one hundred thou- 
sand men within one hundred and fifty miles of the lines in Yirginia. No 
sooner had Sherman disposed his army in camp about Goldsboro' than he 
hastened to City Point, where he had a conference with Gen. Grant, at 
which President Lincoln was present, and where was settled the final plan 
of combination against Kichmond ; it being intended that Sherman should 
move to the line of tlie Roanoke and thence on the Eichmond and Danville 
road, or directly to the front of Petersburg. But this plan was never car- 
ried into operation ; Grant saw reason to anticipate it ; and the fate 
of Richmond was decided without any participation of Sherman in the 
catastrophe. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

BJBSf. LBk's lines AEOTTND EICHMOND and PETERSBUEG. — COMPARISON OF HIS FOEOB WTTB 
THAT OF THE ENEMY. — GEN. LEE's SENTIMENT ABOUT 8UEEENDER. — BULL CONDITION OF 
THE POPULACE IN RICHMOND. — EXTRAVAGANT RUMOURS. — STORY OF THE FRENCH MESSEN- 
GER. — THE FORTRESS MONROE CONFERENCE. — MR. BLAIR's VISIT TO RICHMOND. — NOTES 
OF PRESIDENTS DAVIS AND LINCOLN. — CONVERSATION OF THE FORMER WITH ALEXANDBB 
H. STEPHENS. — OFFICIAL NARRATIVE OF THE CONFERENCE IN HAMPTON ROADS. — A EHE- 
TOEICAL APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF THE CONFEDERACY. — A DAY OF SPEECHES IN EICH- 
MOND. — PRESIDENT DAVIs' SPEECH AT THE AFRICAN CHURCH. — ITS EXTRAVAGANT AND 
SWOLLEN TONE. — A EEMAEK ON THE TEMPER AND VANITY OF THE PRESIDENT. — BATTLP 
OF hare's HILL. — DESIGN OF THE ACTION ON THE PART OF GEN. LEE. — THE GENERAL DIS- 
POSITION OF HIS FORCES. — CAPTURE OF FORT STEADMAN. — THE CONFEDERATES FALTER. — 

WHAT THE DAY PROVED. — THE LAST BATTLES AROUND PETERSBURG. WHY GRANT HUB- 

EIED THE Fl^f AL OPERATIONS. — THE PRELIMINARY EXPEDITION OF SHERIDAn's CAVALRY.-— 
WHAT IT ACCOMPLISHED. — THE ATTEMPT UPON LEE's EIGHT. — DESPERATE RESOURCE OP 
THE CONFEDERATE COMMANDER. — BATTLE OF FIVE FORKS. — MISBEHAVIOUR OF THE CON- 
FEDERATES. — GEN. LEE's EEPEOACH. — BOMBARDMENT OF THE PETERSBURG LINES. — THE 
ASSAULT. — THE CONFEDERATES' LINES BROKEN. — DEFENCE OF FORT GREGG. — A THRILLING 
SCENE OF SELF-DEVOTION. — THE CONFEDERATES FORCED BACK UPON PETERSBURG. — 
DEATH OF GEN. A. P. HILL. — EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. — THE CITY UNPREPARED FOB 
THE NEWS. — FRIGHT AND DISORDER IN THE STREETS. — A CURIOUS SCENE IN THE CAPITOL. 

GEN. EWELl's WITHDRAWAL FROM THE CITY. — HE FIRES A NUMBER OF WAREHOUSES. — 

A FRIGHTFUL CONFLAGRATION. — SCENES OF SUBLIME HORROUR. — GRAND ENTREE OF THB 
FEDERALS. — RAVAGES OF THE FIRE. — EXULTATION IN NORTHERN CITIES. — STUFF OF 
YANKEE NEWSPAPERS. — DUE ESTIMATE OF GRANt's ACHIEVEMENT IN THE FALL OF RICH- 
MOND. — DEFINITION OF GENERALSHIP. — THE QUALITIES OF MIND EXHIBITED BY THB 
NOETH IN THE WAR. 

^ In the first montlis of 1865 Gen. Lee held both Eichmond and Peters- 
burg with not more than thirty-three thousand men. At this time Grant's 
strength, as rated at the War Department in "Washington, exceeded one 
hundred and sixty-thousand men. Such was the disparity of force in the 
final array of tlie contest for Richmond. Gen. Lee's lines stretched from 
below Richmond on the north side of the James to Hatcher's Run away 
beyond Petersburg on the south side. He had forty miles of defence ; and 
it may well be imagined that with his little force posted over such a dis- 



680 THE LOST CAUSE. 

tance, his line of battle was almost as tliin as a skirmish line. Duty was 
incessant ; it was fatiguing in the greatest degree ; the Confederates had 
no reserves, and when a brigade was taken to asssist at some threatened 
point, the position it left was endangered. But even in this extreme situ- 
ation. Gen. Lee had. not yet despaired of the cause of the Confederacy. 
He was gravely sensible of the danger ; in frequent conference with com- 
mittees of the Congress at Richmond, he stated frankly his anxiety, but 
urged levies of negro troops, held out what hope he could, and expressly 
and firmly discountenanced any surrender of the Confederate cause by 
premature negotiations with Washington^ On one of these occasions he 
made the personal declaration for himself that he had rather die on the 
battle-field than surrender — a sentiment which provoked the sneer of a 
a^ell-known " Union " man in Richmond, and the remark that " Gen. Lee 
talked like a school-girl." 

The populace of Richmond was but little aware of the terrible decrease 
of Gen. Lee's army ; and indeed the people of the Confederacy were studi- 
ously kept in the dark as to all details of the military situation. So reti- 
cent had the Government become, that the newspapers were forbid pub- 
lishing anything of military afi'airs beyond the scanty doles of information 
and the skeleton telegrams furnished to the reporters by an official au- 
thority, and copied at the desks of the War Department. It thus hap- 
pened that while there was a general despondency of the public mind, 
there were few outside the severe official circles of Richmond who knew 
the real extremities to which the arms and affairs of the Confederacy had 
fallen. There was a dull expectation of what was next to happen ; there 
was a vague condition of the public mind, in which, although not able to 
discover any substantial and well-defined ground of hope, it yet plodded 
on under the shadow of old convictions, and with a dim anticipation of 
something favourable in the future. While every one affirmed that the 
affairs of the Confederacy were in a bad way, and while every one ap- 
peared to have a certain sense of approaching misfortune, there were very 
few who knew the real condition and numbers of the armies of the Con- 
federacy, and realized how far had been undermined its systena of defence. 
It was difficult indeed to believe that the Army of ISTorthem Yirginia — 
that army, whose name had been for four years as the blast of victory — 
had declined to a condition in which it was no longer capable of offensive 
operations. It was difficult indeed to abandon altogether the idea that the 
happy accident of a victory somewhere in the Confederacy might not, after 
all, put a new aspect on affh,irs. Even if the conclusion of subjugation had 
become probable, its day was at least uncertain, distant ; and the opinion 
of Gen. Lee was quoted in the streets of Richmond that in any event the 
Southern Confederacy was likely to last another year's campaign. Many 
lived in the cii'cle of each day ; the idea of Independence was yet in the 



THE FORTKESS MONROE CONFERENCE. 681 

loose coaversations of the people ; and the favourite cantatrice of the Kich- 
mond Theatre sung to nightly plaudits, " Farewell forever to the star- 
spangled banner!" Then there were those rumours of extravagant for- 
tune, always indicative of a weak and despairing condition of the public 
mind ; among them endless stories of peace negotiations and European 
" recognition." A few weeks before Richmond fell, the report was credit- 
ed for the space of three or four days by the most intelligent persons in the 
city, including some of the editors of the newspapers and President Davis' 
pastor, that a messenger from France had arrived on the coast of North 
Carolina, and was making his way overland to Kichmond, with the news 
of the recognition of the Southern Confederacy by the Eniperour Na- 
poleon ! 

But in this dull condition of the public mind there came a well-defined 
rumour of " peace ; " an event in which another and last appeal was to be 
made to the resolution of the South. 



THE FORTRESS MONROE CONFERENCE. 

At different periods of the war the ambition of individuals on both 
sides had attempted certain propositions of peace, and sought to bring the 
parties at Richmond and Washington into such a position that they could 
not avoid negotiations, without subjecting themselves to the injurious im- 
putation of preferring war. In pursuance of this diplomatic errantry, 
Mr. Francis P. Blair, a skilful politician, in January, 1865, obtained a 
passport from President Lincoln to go through the Federal lines, visited 
Richmond, and while disclaiming any official instructions or countenance 
from Washington, sought to prevail upon President Davis to send, or re- 
ceive, commissioners to treat of peace between the contending parties. On 
the 19th January, Mr. Blair returned to Washington, taking with him 
a written assurance, addressed to himself, from President Davis, of his will- 
ingness to enter into negotiations for peace, to receive a commissioner 
whenever one should be sent, and of his readiness, whenever Mr. Blair 
could promise that he w^ould be received, to appoint such a commissioner, 
minister, or other agent, and thus " renew the effort to enter into a con- 
ference with a view to secure peace between the two countries.'''' The 
reply of Mr. Lincoln was no less diplomatic. He wrote that he was 
■' ready to receive any agent whom Mr. Davis or any other influential per- 
son now resisting the national authorit}^, may informally send me, with a 
view of securing peace to the people of our common country.'''' 

While the intermediation of Mr. Blair was taking place in Richmond, 
a number of Congressmen and leading politicians of the Confederacy had 
been exerting themselves to use the peculiar influence of the Vice-Presi- 



682 THE LOST CAUSE. 

dent, Alexander H. Stepliens, in a negotiation -with AYasliington, and lor 
this purpose to bring him and President Davis to a friendly understand- 
ing. There had long been a coolness between these two high oflScers. 
Mr. Stephens had blown hot and cold in the war. At the beginning of the 
contest he opposed secession ; after the great battles of 1862 around Rich- 
mond, he was intensely Southern, and thought the death of every indi- 
vidual in the Confederacy preferable to subjugation ; at later periods of 
the war he squinted at " reconstruction," and dallied with the " Union " 
faction in the South. The reputation of this man is a striking example of 
how difficult it is in all parts of America for the people to distinguish be- 
tween a real statesman and an elaborate demagogue. Mr. Stephens had 
a great idea of his personal consequence ; he was touchy and exacting in 
his intercourse with other public men ; and he refused to pass a word with 
President Davis until he had obtained from him the concession of a cir- 
cuitous message that " the President would be glad to see Mr. Stephens." 
In the interview which took place. President Davis remarked graciously, 
but with a tinge of sarcasm in his tone, that he knew of " no one better 
calculated to conduct a peace negotiation with the North than Mr. Alex- 
ander H. Stephens." In the statement of his views the President was 
remarkably liberal. He allowed Mr. Stephens to name for himself the 
associate commissioners, who were R. M. T. Hunter of Yirginia, and J. A. 
Campbell of Alabama ; he burdened him with no detail of instructions ; 
he said : " I give you a carte-blanche, only writing on it the one word, 
' Independence.' " 

The anxiously expected conference did not take place until the 3d of 
February. It was attended on the Federal side by President Lincoln him- 
self, accompanied by his Secretary of State, Mr. Seward ; the presence of 
the Northern President having been induced by an earnest telegram from 
Gen. Grant, expressing his personal belief that the Confederate commis- 
sioners, who had passed through his lines, were sincere in their desire for 
peace, and his strong conviction that a personal interview with tliem on 
the pai-t of Mr. Lincoln was highly desirable. The Confederate commis- 
sioners were entertained on board of a steamer lying in Hampton Roads. 
The conference was studiously informal ; there were no notes of it ; there 
■was no attendance of secretaries or clerks ; there was an irregular conver- 
sation of four hours, enlivened by two anecdotes of Mr. Lincoln ; but there 
being absolutely no basis of negotiation between the two parties, not even 
a single point of coincidence between them, they separated without effect. 
The Confederate commissioners obtained only from the interview the dis- 
tinct, enlarged, and insolent demand of Mr Lincoln, that the South should 
submit unconditionally to the rule of the Union, and conform to the ad- 
vanced position of the Federal Executive on the subject of slavery, which 
included an amendment to the Constitution abolishing this domestic insti- 



THE FOETKESS MONROE CONFERENCE. 683 

tution of the South, a bill establishing a Freedmen's Bureau, aud othei 
measures looking to a new construction of relations between the black and 
white populations of the country. 

The report of the conference and its results was made in the following 
message from President Davis, sent in to the Confederate Congress on the 
5 th February : 

" To the Senate and House of Representatives of tJie Confederate States of America: 

" Having recently received a written notification whicli satisfied me that the President 
of the United States was disposed to confer informally with unofficial agents that might 
be sent by me with a view to the restoration of peace, I requested Hon. Alexander H. 
Stephens, Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, and Hon. John A. Campbell, to proceed through our 
lines to hold a conference with Mr. Lincoln, or such persons as he might depute to repre- 
sent him. 

" I herewith submit, for the information of Congress, tlie report of the eminent citi- 
zens above named, showing that the enemy refuse to enter into negotiations with the 
Confederate States, or any one of them separately, or to give our people any other terms 
or guarantees than those which a conqueror may grant, or permit us to have peace on 
any other basis than our unconditional submission to their rule, coupled with the accept- 
ance of their recent legislation, including an amendment to the Constitution for the 
emancipation of negro slaves, and with the right on the part of the Federal Congress to 
legislate on the subject of the relations between the white and black population of each 
State. 

" Such is, as I understand, the effect of the amendment to the Constitution which has 
been adopted by the Congress of the United States. 

.,o«r,. "JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

•' Executive Office, Bichhond, February 5, 1865." 

" Richmond, Vieoinia, February 5, 1865. 

" To the President of the Confederate States : 

" Sir : Under your letter of appointment of 28th ult., we proceeded to seek an informal 
conference with Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, upon the subject men- 
tioned in your letter. 

" The conference was granted, and took place on the 3d inst., on board a steamer an- 
chored in Hampton Roads, where we met President Lincoln and Hon. Mr. Seward, Secre- 
tary of State of the United States. It continued for several hours, and was both full and 
explicit. 

" "We learned from them that the message of President Lincoln to the Congress of the 
United States, in December last, explains clearly and distinctly his sentiments as to terms, 
conditions, and method of proceeding by which peace can be secured to the people, and 
we were not informed that they would be modified or altered to obtain that end. We 
understood from him that no terms or proposals of any treaty or agreement looking to an 
ultimate settlement would be entertained or made by him with the authorities of the 
Confederate States, because that would be a recognition of their existence as a separate 
power, which under no circumstances would be done ; and for like reasons, that no such 
terms would be entertained by him from States separately; that no extended truce or 
armistice, as at present advised, would be granted or allowed without satisfactory assur- 
ances in advance of complete restoration of the authority of the Constitution and laws 
of the United States over all places within the States of the Confederacy ; that whatever 



684 THE LOST CAUSE. 

consequences may follow from the re-establishment of that authority must be accepted, 
but the individuals subject to pains and penalties under the laws of the United States 
might rely upon a very liberal use of the power confided to him to remit those pains and 
penalties, if peace be restored. 

" During the conference the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the United 
States, adopted by Congress on the 31st ult., were brought to our notice. These amend- 
ments provide that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for crime, should 
exist withia the United States, or any place within their jurisdiction, and that Congress 
should have the power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation. 

" Of all the correspondence that preceded the conference herein mentioned and lead- 
ing to the same, you have heretofore been informed. 

"Very respectfully, your obedient servants, 

" ALEX. H. STEPHENS, 
" R. M. T. HUNTER, 
" J. A. CAMPBELL." 

It was doubtless calculated by President Davis that the issue of the 
Fortress Monroe Conference would give a flat answer to the party in the 
Confederacy that had been clamouring for peace negotiations, and make 
an opportunity to excite anew the spirit and indignation of the Southern 
people. It was indeed a powerful appeal to the heart of the South ; it had 
displayed the real consequences of subjugation ; it had declared what 
would be its pains and penalties and humiliation ; it was the ultimatum 
of an enemy calculated to nerve the resolution of a people lighting for 
liberty,, and to make them devote anew labour and life for the great cause 
of their redemption. It was thought in Richmond that the last attempt at 
negotiation would date a new era of resolution and devotion in the war. 
On the return of the commissioners a day was appointed for an imposing 
expression of public opinion on the event of the conference ; all business 
was suspended in Richmond ; at high noon processions were formed to the 
diflferent places of meeting ; and no less than twenty different orators, com- 
posed of the most effective speakers in Congress and the Cabinet, and the 
most eloquent divines of Richmond, took their stands in the halls of legis- 
lation, in the churches and the theatres, and swelled the eloquence of this 
last and grand appeal to the people and armies of the South. Two of the 
returned commissioners, Messrs. Hunter and Campbell, were among the 
orators of the day. Mr. Stef)hens had been urged to speak ; but he had 
a demagogue's instinct of danger in the matter ; it was an awkward 
occasion in which he might say too much or too little ; and so he plead ill- 
health, and escaped to Georgia. It was an extraordinary day in Rich- 
mond ; vast crowds huddled around the stands of tlie speakers or lined the 
streets ; and the air was vocal with the efforts of the orator and the re- 
sponses of his audience. It appeared indeed that the blood of the people 
had again been kindled. But it was only the sickly glare of an expiring 
flame ; there was no steadiness in the excitement ; there was no virtue in 



BATTLE OF HAKe's HILL. 688 

huzzas ; the inspiration ended with the voices and ceremonies that invoked 
it ; and it was found that the spirit of the people of the Confederacy was 
too weak, too much broken to react with effect, or assume the position of 
erect and desperate defiance. 

A few days before this popular convocation in Richmond, and just on 
the return of the commissioners, President Davis himself had addressed a 
popular audience in the African Church. He was attended to the stand 
by the Governor of Virginia. He made a powerful and eloquent address ; 
but in parts of it he fell into weak and bombastic speech, and betrayed that 
boastfulness characteristic of almost all his oral utterances in the war. As 
a writer, Mr. Davis was careful, meditative, and full of dignity ; but as a 
speaker, he was imprudent, and in moments of passion, he frequently 
blurted out what first came into his mind. On this occasion he was boast- 
ful, almost to the point of grotesqueness.^He declared that the march which 
Sherman was then making would be " his last," and would conduct him 
to ruin ; he predicted that before the summer solstice fell upon the country 
it would be the North that would be soliciting peace ; he affirmed that the 
military situation of the Confederacy was all that he could desire ; and 
drawing up his figure, and in tones of scornful defiance, heard to the re- 
motest parts of the building, he remarked that the Federal authorities who 
had so complacently conferred with the commissioners of the Confederacy, 
" little knew that they were talking to their masters]^ " Such swollen 
speeches of the President offended the sober sense of the Confederacy ; and 
it was frequently said that he attempted to blind the people as to the ac- 
tual condition of affairs, and never dealt with them in a proper spirit of 
candour. But this estimate of President Davis is probably a mistaken 
one. He was not insincere ; in all his strange and extravagant utterances 
of confidence he probably believed what he spoke ; and to the last he ap- 
pears never to have apprehended the real situation. He was blinded by 
his own natural temper ; in the last moment he was issuing edicts, playing 
with the baubles of authority, never realizing that he was not stiU the 
great tribune ; he was sustained by a powerful self-conceit, and a sanguine 
temperament ; and he went down to ruin with the fillet of vanity upon 
his eyes. 



BATTLE OF HAEE 8 HILL. 

In the last days of March, 1865, Gen. Lee made his last offensive dem- 
onstration, which ended in failure, and plainly and painfully revealed the 
condition of his troops. He determined to try Grant's lines south of the 
Appomattox ; the attack being immediately directed by Gen. Gordon on 
the enemy's works at Hare's Hill. The project of assault was bold • its 



686 THE LOST CAUSE. 

promises were large ; one success might lead to another ; and if the troopa 
once got possession of a part of the enemy's line, in the flush of success 
they miglit be carried to the capture of the neighbouring works, and Geii. 
Lee might even venture on the great enterprise of getting possession of 
Grant's military road and cutting his entire right fi-om its base at City 
L*oint and from the army north of the James. 

The disposition of Gen. Lee's force was generally as follows : Lono-- 
street commanded the Confederate left, across the James, and his rio-ht 
division extended to within a few miles of Petersburg. Gordon came 
next, with his three divisions, reduced by arduous and fatiguing marches 
and bloody battles in the Shenandoah Valley, to the dimensions of only 
respecta.ble brigades. He commanded just in front of Petersburg, from 
the Appomattox to a small stream to the right of the city. It was along 
this line, almost its entire length, that a continuous struggle for months 
had been kept up, and in some places the opposing forces were but a few 
yards apart, A. P. Hill, with his three divisions, held the right, extend- 
ing to Hatcher's Run, while the cavalry guarded either flank. 

The assault of the 25th March was made two miles south of the Appo- 
mattox and just to the left of the Crater. Massing two divisions, Gordon, 
in the early light of the morning dashed on the Federal works. The ene- 
my was surprised ; the sharpshooters of Grimes' division, composing the 
advance, succeeded in driving the Federal troops from their works, and the 
Confederates occupied their breastworks for a distance of a quarter of a 
mile, with comparatively a slight loss and with the loss to the enemy of 
one i^rincipal fort (Steadman), and some five hundred prisoners. Had this 
opportunity been taken advantage of, there is no telling tlie result ; but 
the troops could not be induced to leave the breastworks they had taken 
from the enemy, and to advance beyond them and seize the crest in rear 
of the line they had occupied. They hugged the works in disorder until 
the enemy recovered from his surprise ; and soon the artillery in the forts 
to the right and left began their murderous fire on them. When fresh troops 
were brought up by the enemy, their advance was almost unresisted, and 
an easy recapture of the fort was obtained, the Confederates retiring under 
a severe fire into their old works. Nearly two thousand men took shelter 
under the breastworks they had captured, and surrendered when the enemy 
advanced, and the result was a Confederate loss much greater than that of 
the foe. This affair demonstrated to all that the day of offensive move- 
ments on the part of the Confederates was gone. The experiment had 
entailed a loss that could be ill afforded by Gen. Lee ; and one more such 
disaster might have been irreparable. 



LAST BATTLES AROUND PETEESBUKG. 687 



THE LAST BATTLES AROUND PETERSBURG. 

Geii. Grant had at first designed to await the junction of Sherman's 
forces for his final operations upon Richmond, so as to complete his assur- 
ance of victor}^. But he feared that if Sherman crossed the Roanoke river, 
Johnston would take the alarm, and move to Lee's lines ; and as the cir- 
cumspect Federal commander was careful to risk nothing, even approach- 
ing to an equal match of force, he determined to dispatch his final move- 
ment upon Richmond, and to make his experiment upon Lee's little army 
with no further occasions of delay. The area of critical operations in the 
Confederacy was now within close and narrow boundaries. Its fate was 
to be practically decided in operations taking place between the Roanoke 
and James Rivers in one direction, and tlie Atlantic Ocean and the Alle- 
ghany Mountains in the other. In this circumscribed space Richmond was 
the prominent figure, the critical point, and Lee's army the chief contestant. 

The usual preliminary to a great action of the Federals — a movement 
of cavalry — was directed by Gen. Grant before the time assigned for a 
general movement of the armies operating against Richmond. The imme- 
diate object was to cut ofi* all communications with the city north of 
James River ; and on the 27th February, Sheridan moved from the Shen- 
andoah Yalley with two divisions of cavalry, numbering about ten thou- 
sand sabres. On the 1st March he secured the bridge across the middle 
fork of the Shenandoah, entered Staunton the next day, and thence pushed 
on towards Waynesboro', where Early, with less than twelve hundred men, 
disputed the dehouche of the Blue Ridge. This force — a remnant of the 
Army of the Yalley — was posted on the banks of a stream, with no way 
open for retreat ; and Sheridan's magnificent cavalry easily ran over it, 
and took more than nine hundred prisoners. Gen. Early, with two of his 
staff officers, escaped by taking to the woods. The next day Charlottes- 
ville was surrendered ; and here Sheridan paused to await the arrival of 
bis trains, busy meanwhile in destroying the railroads towards Richmond 
and Lynchburg. His instructions prescribed that he should gain Lynch- 
burg on the south bank of the James. From that point he was to effectu- 
ally break U]3 those main branches of Lee's communications, the Lynch- 
burg railroads and James River Canal, after which he was to strike south- 
ward through Virginia to the westward of Danville and join Sherman. 
But moving towards the James River, between Richmond and Lynchburg, 
Sheridan found himself confronted by a swollen and impassable stream. He 
fell back, rounded the left wing of Lee's army, crossed the Pamunkey 
River at the White House, and on the 25th March joined Gen. Grant in 
the lines before Petersburg. He had not completed the circuit designed 



688 THE LOST CAUSE. 

for him ; but he had traversed thirteen counties, and done enormous 
damage. The damage to the canal was almost irreparable ; every lock 
had been destroyed as far as Dugaldsville, twenty miles from Lynchburg ; 
and as for the railroads radiating from Charlottesville to Waynesboro, 
Amherst Court-house and Louisa Court-house and extending from the 
South Anna to Chesterfield Station and the Chickahominy river, every 
bridge, nearly every culvert, and scores of miles of the rail itself had been 
completely destroyed. 

Sheridan's cavalry, diverted back from its intended tour to North Caro- 
lina, proved a timely and important accession to Grant's strength in hia 
final encounter. There were indications that that encounter was near at 
hand. There had been days of painful expectation along the Confederate 
line. In the vicinity of Petersburg the heavy booming of guns was occa- 
sionally heard away on the right sounding like distant thunder. Again 
sounds of conflict would open on the extreme left and the rattle of musket- 
ry and the beat of artillery would scarcely leave doubt of a battle in 
earnest ; but after a few impulsive volleys strife would cease and a pro- 
found quiet prevail. The increasing signs of activity inside the enemy's 
lines indicated plainly enough preparations for attack or movement of 
some sort ; but it was impossible to say where the blow would fall and 
how it would be delivered. In the words of one of their officers " each 
night the Confederates unfolded their blankets and unloosed their shoe- 
strings in uncertainty." 

The movement designed by Gen. Grant may be briefly described as 
an attempt upon Lee's right and vulnerable flank by a turning column 
which contingently embraced his whole army and included a heavy opera 
tion of cavalry. On the day that Sheridan reached his lines, three divi- 
sions of what was called the Army of the James on the north side of the 
river, were withdrawn from Longstreet's front without attracting his atten- 
tion, and were transferred to a position near Hatcher's Eun. The Second 
and Fifth corps, which had held this part of the enemy's entrenched lines, 
were now .foot-loose to manoeuvre by the left ; and co-operating with 
Sheridan's cavalry (about twenty-five thousand men in all), they were 
directed to move to the right of Lee's entrenched line, and threaten his 
communication by the Southside Railroad. The movement commenced 
on the 29th March. 

To secure the defence of his right against this powerful column which 
Grant had thrust out by the left, was the immediate necessity that stared 
Gen. Lee in the face, for it was vitally important to secure the lines where- 
on his troops depended for their daily food ; but it was at the same time 
indispensable that he should maintain the long entrenched line that covered 
Petersburg and Richmond. There was no resource but the desperate one 
of stripping his entrenchments to secure his menaced right and contest tho 



BATTLE OF FIVE FOKKS. G89 

prize of the Soutliside Hailroad. In the niglit of tlie 29th, Geu. Lee, hav- 
ing perceived Grant's manoeuvre, despatched Pickett's and Bushrod John- 
son's divisions, "Wise's and Ransom's brigade, Iluger's battalion of infantry, 
and Fitzhugh Lee's division, in all about seventeen thousand men, to en- 
counter the turning column of the enemy. 

Tlie right of the Confederate entrenched line crossed Hatcher's Run at 
the Roydton plank road, and extended some distance along the White Oak 
road. Four miles beyond the termination of this line there was a point 
"where several roads from the north and south converged on the White 
Oak road, forming what is known as the Five Forks. It was an isolated- 
position, but one of great value, as it held the strategic key that opened 
up the whole region which Lee was nOw seeking to cover. In the evening 
of the 29th, Sheridan occupied Dinwiddle Conrt-house, six miles southwest 
of where the two co-operuting corps of infantry lay on their arms and 
about eight miles south of Five Forks. 

A heavy rain the next day prevented further operations ; but on the 
31st Sheridan pushed forward, to Five Forks, where lie encountered two 
divisions of infantry under Pickett and Johnson. In the afternoon of the 
day this Confederate force, which had been moved down by the White 
Oak road, made a determined charge upon the whole cavalry line of the 
enemy, forced it back, and drove it to a point within two miles of Din- 
widdle Court-house. 

On the morning of the 1st April, Sheridan, now reinforced by the Fifth 
'Orps, commanded by Warren, advanced boldly again in the direction of 
L^ive Forks, having ascertained that the Confederates during the night 
liad. withdrawn all but a mask of force from his front. In the afternoon, 
Pickett and Johnson found themselves confined within their works at the 
Five Forks, and flanked by a part of the Fifth corps, which had moved 
down the White Oak road. The Confederate troops having got the idea that 
they were entrapped, and finding themselves pressed front, flank and rear, 
mostly threw down their arms. Five thousand men surrendered themselves 
as prisoners. The remnants of the divisions of Pickett and Johnson fled 
westward from Five Forks routed, demoralized, and past control ; and 
Gen. Lee found that his right, wrenched violently from his centre, was 
turned almost without a battle, and that what he had counted as the bulk 
of his army was no longer of any use. It was the only occasion on which 
the Confederate commander ever exhibited anything like reproof in the 
field. He remarked that the next time the troops w^ere to be taken into 
action, he would put himself at the head of them ; and turning to one of 
his brigadiers, he ordered him, with singular emphasis and severity, to 
gather and put under guard " all the stragglers on the field," making a 
plain reference to the conduct of his ofiicers. 

But even if the shameful misfortune of Five Forks had not befallen 
44 



690 ■ THE LOST CAUSE. 

Gen. Lee, the result would not have been materially different; for the fata 
of Petersburg and Richmond was decided without this event. In massing 
upon liis right, Gen. Lee had reduced the force defending Petei-sburg to 
two mcomplete corps, Gordon's and Hill's ; and these strung over nine 
miles of breastworks, made little more than sentinels. Before Longstrcet, 
who commanded on the other side of the river, was made aware of the sit- 
uation, and could obey Lee's orders for troops. Grant had descried the 
weakness of the Confederate lines before Petersburg, and determined the 
easy task of breaking them. 

On the night of the 1st April, Grant celebrated the victory of Five 
Forks, and performed the prelude of what was yet to come by a tierce and 
continuous bombardment along his lines in front of Petersburg. Every 
piece of artillery in the thickly studded forts, batteries, and mortar-beds 
joined in the prodigious clamour ; reports, savagely, terrifically crashing 
through the narrow streets and lanes of Petersburg, echoed upwards ; it 
appeared as if fiends of the air were engaged in the sulphurous conflict. 
As dawn broke, Grant prepared for the attack, which was made in double 
column at different points on the Confederate line. 

The assault was opened from the Appomattox to Hatcher's Pun, The 
most determined effort was made on Gordon's lines, and here the enemy 
succeeded in taking a portion of the breastworks near the Appomattox. 
But they could not use the advantage which they had struggled so hard to 
obtain, the Confederates holding an inner cordon of works, and the posi- 
tion which the enemy had taken being exposed to a raking lire of artillery 
on the right and left. But while this contest was going on to the left of 
the " Crater," the enemy massed heavily against Hill's left opposite a posi- 
tion the weakest in the line, from which McGowan's brigade had been 
transferred the day previous, leaving only artillerists in the trenches and 
the picket in front. The Confederate skirmishers were driven with impu- 
nity, the batteries were carried in a }noment, and a loud huzza that 
drowned the sound of battle on other parts of the line, proclaimed that 
the enemy had obtained an important success. 

Just in rear, some two or three hundred yards, on many parts of the 
Confederate line, heavy forts had been erected to guard against just such 
'results as had ensued. In rear of the line of works captured by the enemy 
were batteries Alexander and Gregg ; and these two works were all that 
now prevented the enemy from completely cutting the Confederate lines in 
two to the Appomattox. After getting in order, the enemy moved on these 
works — on Fort Alexander first, taking it with a rush, although the gun- 
ners stood to their guns to the last, and fired their last shot while the Fed- 
eral troops were on the ramparts. 

In Fort Gregg there was a small and mixed garrison. Capt. Chew, of 
the 4:th Maryland battery of artillery, was in command of the work. There 



DEFENCE OF FORT GKEGG. 69] 

was added to his battery of two S-inoli rifles and tliirtj men, a body of 
men known, in the vulgar parlance of soldiers, as " Walker's Mules," dis- 
mounted drivers to whom were iriven muskets. These men were Viro-in- 
ians and Louisianians who belonged to Walker's artillery brigade, and 
amounted in round numbers, to about one hundred. The remainder of 
the garrison, about one hundred and twenty, were some men from Harris' 
Mississippi brigade, and some North Carolinians. Both of these com- 
mands, the Mississippians and North Carolinians, had been driven back 
from the picket lines, and had fled into Fort Gregg for shelter. 

Having run over Fort Alexander, the enemy moved on Fort Gregg 
with cheers. Confldently, in beautiful lines and in all the majesty of over- 
powering numbers, did the Federal troops advance upon the devoted work. 
They had got within fifty yards of it, and not the flash of a single rifle had 
yet defied them. The painful thought passed through the ranks of their 
comrades who watched in the distance that the garrison was about to sur- 
render. But instead of a white flag, there was a white pufl' of smoke ; and 
artillery and infantry simultaneously opened on the confident assailants, 
who, staggering and reeling under the death-dealing volley, at last gave 
way, and retreated in masses under cover. A loud and wild cheer rang 
out from the Confederate lines, and was answered in exultant tones by 
the heroic little garrison in Fort Gregg. But reinforcements were hasten- 
ing from the lines of the enemy. There were none to send to the succour 
of the garrison ; every Confederate soldier was needed at his post, and no 
reserves were at hand. As the enemy again came up in battle array, the 
troops moved forward in serried ranks, and soon the fort was canopied in 
smoke. It seemed by mutual consent that the conflict ceased on other 
parts of the line, while both sides stood silent and anxious spectators of the 
struggle at the fort. As the smoke lifts it is seen that the Federals have 
reached the ditch. Those in the distance could descry lines of blue uni- 
forms swarming up the sides of the works ; and as the foi*emost reached 
the top, they reeled and fell upon their comrades below. Once, twice, and 
thrice they reached the top, only to be repulsed ; and yet they persevered 
while the guns in the embrasures continued to fire in rapid succession. 
Presently the sound of artillery ceased, and the Federals mounted the " 
work, and poured a rapid (ire on the defenders within. Many of the gai-"^ 
risen, unwilling to surrender, used their bayonets, and clubbed their guns 
in an unequal struggle. But such resistance could be of short duration ; 
and soon loud huzzas of the enemy told that the fort had been taken, and 
with it the Confederate army cut in two. But the event had been marked 
by a heroic self-immolation ; of the two hundred and fifty men who defend- 
ed the fort there were not more than thirty survivors ; and to the illumined 
Btory of the Army of Northern Virginia, Fort Gregg gave a fitting con- 
2lusion, an ornament of glory that well clasped the record of its deeds. 



692 THE LOST CAUSE. 

As soon as the fort was captured, cannonading and sharpsliooting were 
renewed on other parts of the line. In a moment heavy bodies of ca^'ahy, 
emerging from' the enemy's former lines, pom-ed rapidly over the captured 
works, and galloj)ed in squadrons towards the Appomattox, which was 
some four or five miles distant. Their track could be traced by the heavy 
columns of black smoke that rose from the various farm-houses on their 
route, which had been set on fire. The infantry, which had succeeded 
in capturing the fort, formed line fronting the Confederate right 
flank, and appeared as if they intended marching by the rear into 
Petersburg. 

New dispositions were now made along the Confederate line. The pro 
tracted resistance ofi'ered by Fort Gregg enabled Gen. Lee to establish 
what of force remained to him in the manner best availing for the defence 
of Petersburg. Longstreet, accompanied by a small brigade (Benning's) of 
Fields' division, had arrived from the north side of the James in time to 
check the advance of the enemy long enough to enable fresh troops to 
hurry up in his rear, and to form a fresh line in front of Petersburg. 
Meanwhile Heth's division of A. P. Hill's corps regained some ground, 
and re-established their lines. But in the execution of the movement was 
lost the valuable life of Gen. Hill, who had seen his first service at the 
famous field of Manassas as Colonel of the Thirteenth Yirginia regiment in 
Gen. Johnston's army, had passed rapidly through all the gradations of 
rank to Lieuten ant-General, and had borne a constant and distinguished 
part in the four years' defence of the Confederate capital. Desiring to 
obtain a near view of a portion of the enemy's line, he had ridden forward, 
accompanied by a single orderly, when he unexpectedly came upon a party 
of six Federal soldiers concealed in a ravine. Gen. Hill wore only the 
stars of a colonel on a rough citizen's coat. He advanced upon the party, 
and commanded their surrender ; they consented ; but he neglected to dis- 
arm them, and reassured by finding there was no body of troops in the 
vicinity, they fired a treacherous volley, and shot him through the 
heart. 

The line on which Gen. Lee had now closed around Petersburg was 
not intended for a renewal of battle, which was now hopeless, but merely 
to gain time for the execution of another purpose. A little while after the 
fall of Fort Gregg, ominous columns of smoke arose from numberless depots 
and warehouses of Petersburg. It was eleven o'clock in the morning when 
Gen. Lee wrote a hasty telegram to the War Department, advising that 
the authorities of Richmond should have everything in readiness to evacu- 
ate the capital at eight o'clock the coming night, unless before that time 
despatches should be received from him to a contrary eflect ! 



EVACUATION OF KICHMOND. 693 



EVACUATION OF KICHMOND. 

A small slip of paper, sent up from the "War Department to President 
Davis, as be was seated in liis pew in St. Paul's Chm'cli, contained the 
news of the most momentous event of the war. 

It is a most remarkable circumstance tliat the people of Richmond bad 
remained in profound ignorance of the fighting which had been taking 
place for three days on Gen. Lee's lines. There was not a rumour of it in 
the air. Not a newspaper office in the city bad any inkling of what was 
going on. Indeed for the past few days there had been visible reassurance 
in the Confederate capital ; there were rumoui's that Johnston was moving 
to Lee's lines and a general idea that the combined force would take the 
ofi'ensive against the enemy. But a day before Grant had commenced his 
heavy movement a curious excitement had taken place in Riclimond. The 
morning train had brought from Petersburg the wonderful rumour that 
Gen. Lee had made a night attack, in which he had crushed the enemy 
along his whole line. Jolm M. Daniel, the editor of the Pichmond 
Examiner^ died the same day under the delusion that such a victory had 
been won ; and John Mitcliel, who wrote his obituary in the morning 
papers, expressed the regret that the great Yirginian had passed away just 
as a decisive victory was likel}^ to give the turning point to the success of 
the Southern Confederacy ! The circumstance shows how little prepared 
the people of Pichmond were on the bright Sabbath morning of the 2d of 
April for the news that fell upon them like a thunder-clap from clear skies, 
and smote the ear of the community as a knell of death. 

The report of a great misfortune soon traverses a city without the aid 
of printed bulletins. But that of the evacuation of Pichmond fell upon 
many incredulous ears. One could see the quiet streets stretching away, 
unmolested by one single sign of war ; across the James the landscape 
glistened in the sun ; everything which met the eye spoke of peace, and 
made it impossible to picture in imagination the scene which was to ensue. 
There were but few people in the streets ; no vehicles disturbed the quiet 
of the Sabbath ; the sound of the church-going bells rose into the cloudless 
sky, and floated on the blue tide of the beautiful day. How was it possible 
to imagine that in the next twenty-four hours, war, with its train of hor- 
rours, was to enter the scene ; that this peaceful city, a secure possession 
for four years, was at last to succumb ; that it was to be a prey to a great 
conflagration, and that all the hopes of the Southern Confederacy were to 
oe consumed in one day, as a scroll in the fire ! 

As the day wore on, clatter and bustle in the streets denoted the pro- 
gress of the evacuation, and convinced those who had been incredulous of 



694 THE LOST CAUSE. 

its reality. Tlie disorder increased each hour. The streets were thronged 
with fugitives making their way to the raih'oad depots ; pale women and 
little shoeless children struggled in the crowd ; oaths and hlasphemoiis 
ahouts smote the ear. Wagons were being hastily loaded at the Depart- 
ments with boxes, trunks, etc., and driven to tlie Danville depot. In the 
afternoon a special train carried from Richmond President Davis and some 
of his Cabinet. At the Departments all was confusion ; there was no sys- 
tem ; tliere was no answer to inquiries ; important officers were invisible, 
and every one felt like taking care of himself. Outside the mass of hur- 
rying fugitives, there were collected here and there mean-visaged crowds, 
generally around the commissary depots ; they had already scented prey ; 
they were of that brutal and riotous element that revenges itself on all 
communities in a time of great public misfortune. 

The only convocation, the only scene of council that marked the fall of 
Richmond, took place in a dingy room in a corner of the upper story of 
the Capitol Building. In this obscure chamber assembled the City Coun- 
cil of Richmond, to consult on the emergency, and to take measures to 
secure what of order was possible in the scenes about to ensue. It ap- 
peared to represent all that was left of deliberation in the Confederate ca]3- 
ital. It was a painful contrast to look in upon this scene ; to traverse the 
now almost silent Capitol House, so often vocal with oratory, and crowded 
with the busy scene of legislation ; to h.ear the echo of the fuotstep ; and at 
last to climb to the dismal show of council men in the remote room where 
half a dozen men sat at a nide table, and not so many vacant idlers listened 
to their proceedings. At the head of the board sat an illiterate grocer of 
the name of Saunders, who was making his last exhibition of Southern 
spirit, and twenty-four hours thereafter was subscribing himself to some 
very petty Federal officer, " mo^t respectfuUj', your most obedient servant." 
Here and there, hurrying up with the latest news from the War Depart- 
ment, was Mayor Mayo, excited, incoherent, chewing tobacco defiantly, 
but yet full of pluck, having the mettle of the true Virginian gentleman, 
stern and watchful to the last in fidelity to the city that his ancestors had 
assisted in founding, and exhibiting, no matter in what comical aspects, a 
eourao-e that no man ever doubted. When it was finally announced by 
tlie Mayor that those who had hoped for a despatch from Gen. Lee con- 
trary to what he had telegraphed in the morning, had ceased to indulge 
such an expectation, and that the evacuation of Richmond was a foregone 
conclusion, it was proposed to maintain order in the city by two regiments 
of militia ; to destroy every drop of liquor in the warehouses and stores ; 
and to establish a patrol through the night. But the militia ran through 
the fingers of their officers ; the patrols could not be found after a certain 
hour ; and in a short while the whole city -was plunged into mad confusion 
and indescribable horrours. 



DISORDER IN THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL. 695 

But the horrours of that night in the Confederate capital were to be 
Btndiouslj veiled from the eyes of the enemy. The Federal force on the 
north side of James River consisted of three divisions under the command 
of Gen. Weitzel ; while Gen. Ewell covered this approach to the capital 
with a force about four thousand strong. The Confederates were silently 
withdrawn from Weitzers front, their rear-guard traversing the city be- 
fore daybreak. Weitzel had been instructed to push on, whenever satis- 
fied of his ability to enter Richmond. During the whole day that Grant 
had been engaged in front of Petersburg, the entire lines north of the 
James were perfectly quiet. Weitzel's command had orders to make as 
great a show as possible. He fired no gun during the day, but as darkness 
came on, he set all his bands of music to work upon national airs. The 
Confederates vied with the musical entertainment ; for many hours the 
night was filled with melodious strains. But about midnight a complete 
and absolute silence fell upon the lines. It was a dead quiet ; a close mask 
to what was taking place in the doomed city ; and not until the morning 
hours did the direful blazon in the sky proclaim to Weitzel that his hour 
had come and that Richmond was at his mercy. 

There had been but little sleep for the people of Richmond in the night 
which preceded their great misfortune. It was an extraordinary night ; 
disorder, pillage, shouts, mad revelry of confusion. In the now dimly- 
lighted city could be seen black masses of people, crowded around somo 
object of excitement, besieging the commissary stores, destroying liquor, 
intent perhaps upon pillage, and swaying to and fro in whatever momen- 
tary passion possessed them. The gutters ran with a liquor freshet, and 
the fumes filled the air. Some of the straggling soldiers passing through 
the city, easily managed to get hold of quantities of the liquor. Confusion 
became worse confounded ; the sidewalks were encumbered with broken 
glass ; stores were entered at pleasure and stripped from top to bottom ; 
yells of drunken men, shouts of roving pillagers, wild cries of distress filled 
the ail", and made night hideous. 

But a new horrour was to appear upon the scene and take possession 
of the community. To the rear-guard of the Confederate force on tiie north 
side of James River, under Gen. Ewell, had been left the duty of blowing 
up the iron-clad vessels in the James and destroying the bridges across that 
liver. The Richmond, Yirginia, and an iron ram, were blown to the 
winds ; the little shipping at the wharves was fired ; and the three bridges 
that spanned the river were wrapped in flames, as soon as the last troopa 
Lad traversed them. The work of destruction might well have ended 
here.. But Gen. Ewell, obeying the letter of his instructions, had issued 
orders to fire the four principal tobacco warehouses of the city ; one of 
them — the Shockoe warehouse — situated near the centre of the city, side 
by side with the Gallego flour mills, just in a position and circumstances 



696 THE LOST CAUSE. 

from which a conflagration might extend to the whole business portion of 
Eichmond. In r^iii Mayor Mayo and a committee of citizens had remon- 
strated against this reckless military order. The warehouses were fired ; 
the flames seized on the neighbouring buildings and soon involved a wide 
and widening area ; the conflagration passed rapidly beyond control ; 
and in this mad fire, this wild, unnecessary destruction of their property 
the citizens of Kichmond had a fitting souvenir of the imprudence and 
recklessness of the departing Administration. 

Morning broke on a scene never to be forgotten. It was a strange pic- 
ture — impossible to describe — the smoke and glare of fire mingled with 
the golden beams of the rising sun. The great warehouse on the Basin was 
wrapped in flames ; the fire was reaching to whole blocks of buildings ; 
and as the snn rose majestically above the horiz.on, it burnished the fringe 
of smoke with lurid and golden glory. Curious crowds watched the fire. 
Its roar sounded in the ears ; it leaped from street to street ; pillagers 
were busy at their vocation, and in the hot breath of the fire were figures 
as of demons contending for prey. 

The sun was an hour or more above the horizon, when suddenly there 
ran up the whole length of Main street the cry of " Yankees ! " " Yan- 
kees ! " The upper part of this street was choked with crowds of pillagers 
— men provided with drays, others rolling barrels up the street, or bend- 
ing under heavy burdens, and intermixed Math them women and children 
with smaller lots of plunder in bags, baskets, tubs, buckets, and tin-pans. 
As the cry of " Yankees " was raised, this motley crowd tore up the 
street, cursing, screaming, trampling upon each other, alarmed by an 
enemy not yet in sight, and madly seeking to extricate themselves from 
imaginary dangers. Presently, beyond this crowd, following up the tangled 
mass of plunderers, but not pi'essing or interfering with them, was seen a 
small body of Federal cavalry, riding steadily along. Forty Massachusetts 
troopers, despatched by Gen. AVeitzcl to investigate the condition of 
affairs, had ridden without let or hindrance into Richmond. At the corner 
of Eleventh street they broke into a trot for the public square, and in a few 
moments their guidons were planted on the Capitol, and fluttered there a 
strange spectacle in the early morning light. 

A few hours thereafter, and Weitzel's troops were pouring through the 
streets of the city. A lady, who witnessed the grand Federal entree, and 
has given a very graphic account of it, thus describes a portion of the 
scene : " Stretching from the Exchange Hotel to the slopes of Church Hill, 
down the hill, through the valley, up the ascent to the hotel, was the 
array, with its unbroken line of blue, fringed with bright bayonets. 
Strains of martial music, flushed countenances, waving swords, be- 
tokened the victorious army. As the line turned at the Exchange Hotel 
into the upper street, the movement was the signal for a wild burst of cheera 



i' 



CONTLAGKATION IN mCHMOND. 697 

from each regiment. Shouts from a few negroes were the only responses. 
Through tlirongs of sullen spectators ; along the line of fire ; in the midst 
of the horrours of a conflagration, increased by the explosion of shells left 
by the retreating army ; through curtains of smoke ; through the vast 
serial auditorium convulsed with the commotion of frightful sounds, moved 
the garish procession of the grand army, with brave music, and bright 
banners and wild cheers. A regiment of negro cavalry swept by the hotel 
As they turned the street corner they drew their sabres with savage shouts, 
and the blood mounted even in my woman's heart with quick throbs of 
defiance." * 

Meanwhile tlie fire raged with unchecked fury. The entire businesa 
part of the city was on fire ; stores, warehouses, manufactories, mills, de- 
pots, and bridges — all, covering acres ; the continuous thunder of explod- 
ing shells sounded in the sea of fire ; and in the midst of it was the long, 
threatening, hostile army entering to seize its prey. All during the fore- 
noon, flame and smoke and burning brands and showers of blazing sparks 
filled the air, spreading still further the destruction, mitil it had swept be- 
fore it every bank, every auction store, every insurance oflice, nearly every 
commission house, and most of the fashionable stores. The atmosphere 
was almost choking ; men, women, and children crowded into the square 
of the Capitol for a breath of pure air ; but it was not to be obtained even 
there, and one traversed the green slopes blinded by cinders and strug- 
gling for breath. Already piles of furniture had been collected here, drag- 
ged from the ruins of burning houses ; and in uncouth arrangements, made 
with broken tables and bureaus, were huddled women and chikb-en, with 
no other home, with no other resting place in Heaven's great hollowncss. 

Some tardy attempts were made to arrest the conflagration ; in the 
afternoon the military authorities organized the crowds of negroes as a fire 
corps ; but the few steam-engines that played upon tlie flames were not 
sufiicient to check their progress. It was late in the evening when the fire 
had burned itself out. It had consumed the most important part of Rich- 
mond. Commencing at the Shockoe warehouse, the fire radiated fra.^t 
and rear, and on two wings, burning down Main street, half way betweea 
Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets, and back to the river, through Cary and 
all the intermediate streets. "Westward, on Main, the fire was staj'cd at 
"Ninth street, sweeping back to the river. On the north side of Main the 
flames were stayed between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets. From this 
point the flames raged on the north side of Main up to Eighth street, and 
back to Bank street. The pencil of the surveyor could not have more dis- 
tinctly marked out the business portion of the city. 

The evening breezes had turned the course of the fire ; and as these 

* " Nathalie, in Norfolk Virginian. 



698 THE LOST CAUSE. 

still continued, heavy mist- clouds liung n])on the horizon, or streamed up- 
wards on the varying cnrrent of the winds. As night came on, there waa 
a painful reaction after the day's terrible excitement ; a strange quiet fell 
upon the blackened city and its scenes of destruction. It was the quiet 
of a great desolation. Groups of women and children crawled under shel- 
ters of broken furnitm*e in the Capitol square ; hundreds of homeless per- 
sons laid down to sleep in the shadows of the ruins of Richmond ; and 
worn out by excitement, exhausted as by the spasm of a great battle, men 
"watched for the morroAV with the dull sense that the work of years had 
been ruined, and that all they possessed on earth had been swept away. 

"While Itichmond was filled with horrour and destruction, and the 
smoke of its torment ascended to the skies, very different scenes were 
taking place far away in the cities of the North. It was a strange reverse 
to the picture we have been contemplating. "With those fervours and 
shows characteristic of the Northern mind, Washington and New York 
were celebrating the downfall of the Confederate capital. Bells were rung ; 
wild and enthusiastic congratulations ran along the street ; and vast crowds 
collected, whose fantastic exhibitions of joy, not content with huzzas, 
cheers, and dancing in the streets, broke out into a blasphemous singing 
of hymns of the church. In New York twenty thousand persons in the 
open air sung the doxology. There was, of course, an unlimited display 
of flags; and as evidence of this characteristic exhibition it is said that 
half an hour after the news of the fall of Eichmond was known, not a 
single large flag in the whole city of New York was left unpurchased. 
These symbols of loyalty not only floated over houses, but were fastened 
to carts, stages and wagons. The newspapers were mostly occupied with 
spread-eagles and maps of Richmond. The World expressed the opinion 
that the event of the day " more fully justified exuberant rejoicing than 
any previous achievement in the history of the war." The New York 
Herald — the organ ^o^y excellence of Yankee wind — went further, and de- 
clared that the taking of Richmond was " one of the grandest trlumj)hs 
that had crowned human efforts for centuries." 

Such stuff" was characteristic of Northern newspapers. But looking to 
facts we shall find a more precise language in which to describe the 
achievement of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the fall of Richmond. 

It was simply the consummation of the disgrace of this commander — 
that he should have taken eleven months to capture a position at no time 
held by more than one third of his forces, having lost in the enterprise in 
killed and wounded more than double the numbers actually in arms 
against him ! This sentence may grate on Northern pride ; but it is 
founded upon plain, unyielding figures ; it is the inexorable statement of 
the law of proportions ; it can be no more contested than a mathematical 
demonstration. As long as the intelligent of this world are persuaded of 



DEFICIENCIES OF NORTHERN GENERALSniP. 699 

the opinion that a great General is he who accomplishes his purposes with 
small, but admirably drilled armies ; who defeats large armies with small 
ones ; who accomplishes great military results by strategy, more than by 
fighting, who makes of war an intellectual exercise rather than a match of 
brute force, that title will be given to Kobert E. Lee above all men in 
America, and the Confederate commander will be declared to have been 
much greater in defeat than Grant in his boasted victory. 

The adulation of partisans has no permanent place in the records of 
glory. The office of the historian is to reduce the exaggerations of the 
present, and that without reference to the passionate criticisms of the times 
in which he lives. If the fact be that the North has produced no great 
General in this war ; that the exhibitions of generalship, chivalry, human- 
ity, and all that noble sentimentalisni that properly belongs to the state 
of war have been more largely on the Confederate side ; that the Northern 
people have exhibited gross materialism in the war, have excluded that 
noble spirituality common to the great conflicts of civilized nations, and 
worshipped the grossest types of physical power, the fault is in themselves, 
and not in the pen that writes these things. 



CHAPTEE XLII. 

PTTBLIO FEELING IN RICHMOND AFTER EVACUATION DAT. — PRESIDENT DAVIs' PROOLAMATIOS 
AT DANVILLE. — NEW AND SANGUINE THEORY OF CONFEDERATE DEFENCE. — MORAL EFFECT 
OF THE FALL OF RICHMOND. RETREAT AND FINAL SURRENDER OF LEe's ARMY. CROSS- 
ING OF THE APPOMATTOX. — EXPLOSION OF MAGAZINES. — THE WAGON-TRAIN FROM RICH- 
MOND. — ORDER OF grant's PURSUIT. — GEN. LEE's NEW HOPES. — THEY ABE DASHED AT 

amelia court-house.— the confederates in a starving condition. — ^lee abandons 
the route to danville and makes for lynchburg, by way of farmville. — suffer- 
ings on the march. demoralization of the troops. some spirited episodes. 

the action of sailors' creek. the confederates in the vicinity of farmville. 

affairs with the enemy. the confederates retreat to appomattox court-house 

"without molestation. sense of relief among the troops. ominous sounds of 

cannon. — the exit to lynchburg closed by sheridan. desperate adventure op 

Gordon's corps. — the recoil. — a flag of truce on the scene. — correspondence 
between gens. grant and lee, leading to the surrender of the army of north- 
ERN VIRGINIA. — THE CONFERENCE AT m'lEAn's HOUSE. GEN. LEE ANNOUNCING THE 

TERMS OF SURRENDER. A TOUCHING SCENE AT HIS HEADQUARTERS. GEN. LEe's FARE- 
WELL ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY. MAGNANIMOUS AND DELICATE BEHAVIOUR OF GRANT. 

GEN. lee's return TO HIS HOME. — GREAT EXULTATION AT WASHINGTON. — SECRETARY 

Stanton's congratulations. — scene at the president's house.— characteristic 
speech and last joke of abraham lincoln. 

The Federal occupants of Riclimond no doubt tliouglit the people verj 
submissive to the new authority. They saw no sign of violence, and they 
heard no expression of defiance. The ])opulation of Richmond moved 
mechanically before their new masters. But there was, for some days, an 
undercurrent of eager, excited thought which the Federals did not per- 
ceive ; citizens whispered among themselves, and went around the street- 
corners to relate in low tones to each other some rumour eagerly grasped 
for the new hope it contained. Thus it was told in whispers that Gen. 
Lee had won a great victory on his retreat, that Johnston had struck Sher- 
man a mortal blow, or that some other extravagant event had iiappened, 
some sudden relief of the falling fortunes of the Confederacy. It is not 
easy for men to descend at once to the condition of despair. 



PKESroENT DAVIs' LAST PKOCLAMATION. 701 

But even outside the circle of absurd rumours, there were intelligent 
minds in Eiclimond that still entertained lingering hopes of the cause of 
the Confederacy. The foundation of these hopes was small, but not alto- 
gether visionary. Tliere was a chance that Lee might get off his aiiny 
safely, and effect a successful retreat ; he might unite with Johnston ; and, 
although driven from Virginia, the armies of the Confederacy might re- 
open Georgia and the Carolinas, and place the Government nearer its 
resources of subsistence, with the control of a territory practically much 
larger than that in the Richmond jurisdiction. 

These things were possibilities, very small and very remote. It was 
learned through Northern newspapers, circulated in Richmond, that Presi- 
dent Davis, who had reached Danville, had issued there the following 
proclamation : 

Danville, Va., April 5, 1865. 

The General-in-Chief found it necessary to make such movements of his troops as to 
uncover the capital. It vrould be unwise to conceal the moral and material injury to 
our cause resulting from the occuj)ation of our capital by the enemy. It is equally un- 
wise and unworthy of us to allow our own energies to falter, and our eflforts to become 
relaxed under reverses, however calamitous they may be. For many months the largest 
and finest army of the Confederacy, under a leader whose presence inspires equal confi- 
dence in the troops and the people, has been greatly trammelled by the necessity of keej}- 
ing constant watch over the approaches to the capital, and has thus been forced to forego 
more than one opportunity for promising enterprise. It is for us, my countrymen, to 
show by our bearing under reverses how wretched has been the self-deception of those 
who have believed us less able to endure misfortune with fortitude than to encounter 
dangers with courage. 

"We have now entered upon a new phase of the struggle. Relieved from the necessity 
of guarding particular points, our army will be free to move from point to point, to 
strike the enemy in detail far from his base. Let us but will it, and we are free. 

Animated by that confidence in your spirit and fortitude which never yet failed me, 
I announce to you, fellow-countrymen, that it is my purpose to maintain your cause 
with my whole heart and soul ; that I will never consent to abandon to the enemy one 
foot of tlie soil of any of the States of the Confederacy. That Virginia — noble State— 
whose ancient renown has been eclipsed by her still more glorious recent history ; whose 
bosom has been bared to receive the main shock of this war ; whose sons and daughters 
have exhibited heroism so sublime as to render her illustrious in all time to come — that 
Virginia, with the help of the people, and by the blessing of Providence, sImII le held 
and defended^ and no peace ever be made with the infamous invaders of her territory. 

If by the stress of numbers we should ever be compelled to a temporary withdrawal 
from her limits, or those of any other border State, we will return until the bafiied and 
exhausted enemy shall abandon in despair his endless and impossible task of making 
slaves of a people resolved to be free. 

Let us, then, not despond, my countrymen, but, relying on God, meet the foe with 
fresh defiance, and with tmconquered and unconquerable hearts. 

JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

Tills proclamation was the last effusion of the sanguine temperament 



702 THE LOST CAUSE. 

of the Confederate President. It gave a new colour to the evacuation of 
Eiclimoud. But the hopeful and ingenious minds which constructed the 
new theory of Confederate defence had failed to take in a most important 
element in the consideration — the moral effect of the fall of Eichinond. 
They did not reflect that this city had been for four years the central object 
of all the plans and exertions of the war ; they did not understand that it 
had become to the popular mind the symbol of the Confederacy ; and they 
could not realize that when Richmond fell the cause lost in the estimation 
of the army and people the emblem and semblance of nationality and all 
apj)liances for supporting the popular faith and enthusiasm. But the sequel 
was to develop and demonstrate all these consequences, and the last hopes 
of the Confederacy were to be speedily extinguished. 



EETEEAT AKD FINAL SUKEENDEK OF LEe's ARMY. 

In his last despatch from Petersburg, Gen. Lee had stated that some 
time during the night of the 2d April, he would fall back behind the Ap- 
pomattox. He was then holding a semicircular line, the left resting on 
the Appomattox, narrowly including Petersburg ; while his extreme right, 
which Sheridan was still pressing, was in the vicinity of the Southside 
Railroad, some fifteen miles west of the town. It appears that the enemy 
already imagined that he had cut off the troops ou the right, supposing 
that they could not cross the river except through Petersburg ; but in this 
he M-as mistaken. "When night closed, the air was luminous with the 
steady glare of the burning warehouses in Petersburg. For several hours 
cannonading was kept up ; hut about midnight the Confederates began 
their retreat. By three o'clock in the morning, Gordon's whole corps, 
except a few pickets and stragglers, was safely across the river, and the 
bridge on fire. 

As the troops from Petersburg got across the river, the heavily-charged 
magazine of Cummin's battery of siege guns blew up, lighting the deep 
darkness of the night with its fierce and vivid glare, and then shaking the 
earth like the shock of an earthquake. Port Clifton's magazine in a 
moment followed, and then the explosion was taken up all along the line 
to Richmond. The scene was fierce and imposing. The retreating army 
left the light and pierced the midnight darkness. At each step some new 
explosion would sound in their ears. The Avhole heavens in their rear 
were lit up in lurid glare, and added intensity to the blackness before 
their eyes. 

On leaving Petersburg, Gordon's corps took the river road ; IMahone, 
with his division, and all other troops on the south side of the James, tho 
middle road, and EweU and Elzey, with the Richmond garrison, and other 



RETREAT OF GEN. LEE. 703 

troops, the road nearest the James Eiver. During tlie day following the 
evacuation of Petersburg, tlie Confederates made good progress, their route 
unimpeded by wagons and artillery. But after the junction of Gordon's 
corj)s with Mahonc and Ewell, with thirty miles of wagons, containing the 
special plunder of the Richmond departments, they went at a rate so dis- 
tressingly slow, that it was apparent that an enterprising enemy would 
have little trouble in overtaking them. 

But the day passed without any attack of the enemy, and without the 
appearance of any considerable body of his forces. So far the retreat had 
been an occasion of reassurance ; it had been efiected safely ; and with the 
additions made to the Petersburg section of troops from the Richmond 
lines and from Lee's extreme right, which had crossed the Appomattox 
above Petersburg, that resourceful commander had now well in hand 
more than twenty thousand troops. Gen. Lee had clearly seen that his 
retreat M'ould put the enemy to the necessity of breaking up into bodies 
of one or two army corps, with a view to a vigorous pursuit. On the 
morning of the 3d, Grant commenced .pursuit. Its order, calculated on 
the clear assumption that Lee would move for the Danville road, was as 
follows : Sheridan to push for the Danville road, keeping near the Appo- 
mattox ; Meade to follow with the Second and Sixth corps ; and Ord to 
move for Burkesville along the Southside road, the Kinth corps stretching 
along tlie road behind him. It was certainly a well-planned pursuit ; but 
it involved the possibility that Lee might fall on the enemy in detail ; it 
was a question of the rapidity of movements and combinations, in which, 
although Grant held the interiour line, his adversary was not in a hopeless 
situation ; for Lee, even if forced from the Danville road, might take up 
an eccentric line, make a race to Farmville, there cross the Appomattox 
once more, and, by destroying the bridges after him, escape into the moun- 
tains beyond Lynchburg. 

"With spirits visibly reassured, the retreating army reached Amelia 
Court-house in the morning of the 4th. But a terrible disappointment 
awaited it there. Several days before, Gen. Lee had despatched most dis- 
tinct and urgent orders that large supplies of commissary and quarter- 
master's stores should be sent forward from Danville to Amelia Court- 
house. But the authorities in Richmond bungled the command ; and tho 
train of cars loaded with these supplies ran through to relieve the evacuation 
of the capital, without unloading the stores at Amelia Court-house. Gen. 
Lee found there not a single ration for his army. It was a terrible revela- 
tion. To keep life in his army, he would have to break up half of it into 
foraging parties to get food ; the country was scant of subsistence, a tract 
of straggling woods and pine barrens ; and soon the pangs of hunger would 
tell upon the flagging spirits of his men, and consume the last hope. 
Meanwhile the forced delay of his army at Amelia Court-house gave 



704 THE LOST CAUSE. 

Sheridan, wlio was pursuing witli his cavahy, and the Fifth corps, tune to 
strike in upon the Confederate line of retreat. In the afternoon, of the 4th 
he was reported at Jetersville, on the Danville Eailroad, seven miles south 
west of Amelia Court-house. But it was no longer a question of battle 
with Gen. Lee ; the concern was now simplj to escape. His men were 
suffering from hunger ; half of them had been sent or had straggled m 
quest of food ; soldiers who had to assuage their craving by plucking the 
buds and twigs of trees, were scarcely to be blamed for courting capture ; 
and thus with his army in loose order, in woful plight, diminishing at 
every step. Gen. Lee determined to try the last desperate chance of escape, 
and to penetrate the region of hills in the direction of Farmville, hoping to 
avail himself of these positions of defence. 

On the 5tli he took up this line of retreat ; but the locomotion of his 
army was no longer what it had been. The troops went wearily along, 
averaging hardly half a mile an hour. It was with some satisfaction that 
they saw the wagons which had so effectually clogged their march begin 
to cast up their plunder. Jaded horses and mules refused to pull ; de- 
moralized and badly-scared drivers, with straining eyes and perspiring 
bodies, plied tlieir whips vigorously to no effect ; difficult places in the 
road were choked with blazing wagons, fired to save their contents fi'om 
the enemy ; there were deafening reports from ammunition exploding and 
shells bursting, when touched by the flames ; and on this line of terrible 
retreat, behind and on either flank, there was a running fight through every 
hour of the day. At every hill divisions would alternately halt, and form 
linse of battle and check the pursuers. As soon as proper disposition had 
been made on the next line of hills the rear division would move off' and 
pass the others, only to form again at the next suitable defensive position. 
Thus toiled on the retreating army. Hundreds of men dropped from ex- 
haustion ; thousands threw away their arms ; the demoralization appeared 
at last to involve the officers ; they did nothing to prevent straggling ; and 
many of them seemed to shut their eyes on the hourly reduction of their 
commands, and rode in advance of their brigades in dogged indifference. 

But in the jaded, famishing crowd there was yet left something of the 
old spirit which had made the Army of Northern Virginia famous through- 
out the world, and inscribed its banners M'ith the most glorious names of 
the war. Its final retreat was not to be without its episodes of desperate 
and devoted courage. 

On the 6th, the enemy having changed the order of pursuit to conform 
to Lee's new movement, Sheridan, with his cavalry, struck in upon the 
Confederate line of retreat just south of Sailors' Creek, a small tributary 
of the Appomattox. Ewell's corps, consisting of about four thousand 
two hundred men, was called upon to support Pickett, who, with his divi- 
sion reduced to about eight hundred men, was being sorely pressed by 



ENGAGEMENT AT SAILOKs' CREEK. 705 

Sheridan. On reaching the ground, and whilst deploying his troops into 
line of battle, it was discovered that Gordon's division, which formed the 
rear-guard of the army, had taken another road, following after tlie "wagon 
train, and that the Federal forces had already occupied the high ground in 
Ewell's rear, opening upon his troops a rapid and deadly fire of artillery. 
A very brief time elapsed, when the appearance of a very heavy force of 
infantry, also in the rear, rendered it necessary to fiice about the Confed- 
erate line, and prepare for another conflict on the very ground over which 
it had just passed. The enemy advanced with spirit, and with the evident 
determination of bringing matters to a crisis, and thus, Avithout being able 
to assist Pickett, Ewell, with his small force, was compelled to hold his 
ground against these overwhelming numbers in his (Pickett's) rear. At 
this critical juncture fresh troops w^ere brought up against Pickett, and, 
charging impetuously on his line, it was easily broken, never again to be 
reformed, or restored to such order as to render it longer available. The 
enemy's forces, confident and exulting over the prospect of success, were 
now hurled upon the brave men of Ewell's corps. It, however, with an 
exhibition of valour never surpassed, continued to stand at bay. It kept 
up a most destructive fire, strewing the field wutli dead and wounded. But 
at last the unequal contest was terminated ; Gen. Ewell was captm'ed, and 
one of his division commanders, G. W. C. Lee ; and the greater portion 
of the command surrendered, but not until they had given evidences of a 
pirit which the enemy had scarcely looked for in so small a portion of a 
ugitive army. 

The retreat of what remained of the Confederate army was continued, 
until at last it had crossed the Appomattox and reached Earmville. Ex- 
cept Longstreet's command, it crossed the river during the night ; Gor- 
don's troops at the High Bridge going into bivouac on the opposite side, 
while Longstreet occupied the hills on the river near the town of Farmville. 
Here, on the morning of the 7th, the haversacks of many of the men were 
replenished for the first time since leaving Petersburg. It is said of these 
devoted men who yet clung to the great Confederate commander, that 
their suffering from the pangs of hunger " has not been approached in the 
military annals of the last fifty years." 

At early dawn the enemy made an attack on Gordon at the bridge, and 
on Longstreet on the hills near Farmville. Firing the bridge, and leaving 
one brigade to check the enemy, the remainder of Gordon's corps took the 
railroad track to Farmville, leaving the brigade skirmishing sharply. On 
the high hills on the upper side of the Appomattox, just beyond Farm- 
ville, it appeared as if the Confederates intended to give battle. The artil- 
lery was placed in position, and active skirmishing had commenced with 
the Federal advance, which had crossed the river on the heels of the re- 
treating rear-guard of the Confederates. The lines of infantry were formed 
45 



706 THE LOST CAUSE. 

in order of battle ; but it was only done to cover the movement of the 
wagons, as the army took up its line of retreat. That portion of the Fed- 
eral army which had crossed the river dashed on recklessly, and seemed to 
think they had only a demoralized mob to contend with. They drove the 
Confederate wagon guard in and cut the train in two, on the road the 
wagons were traversing ; but Grimes' division advanced at a double-quick, 
attacked and charged the assailants, routed them, and captured two hun- 
dred prisoners. 

During all day of the 7th, the Confederate army marched without 
molestation in the rear. Occasionally the enemy's cavalry would dash in on 
a portion of their wagon train, kill a few horses, frighten drivers and quar- 
termasters, and then scamper away ; but no serious impediment was ofi'ered 
to the march. Tlie whole army had left the main road and were travers- 
ing dense thickets of oak and pine, through which ran rarely used and 
broken roads. On the 8th they continued to march steadily, and in the 
middle of the day struck a better road, and made rapid progress until 
dark, when the rear was within four miles of Appomattox Court-house. 
The head of the column had reached the Court-house. Lynchburg was 
but twenty-four miles off. Not a gun had been fired during the day. 
The troops went into camp without restraint. No enemy seemed near. 
The bands of the divisions enlivened the departing hours of day with mar- 
tial music. The weary private soldiers prepared to sleep with a strange 
sense of relief and contentment. 

But in this niglit of apparent security the general officers were consult- 
ing together ; and their looks plainly indicated intense anxiety. Soon the 
rumble of distant cannon sounded in front. Presently came the ominous 
order for all the extra artillery to be cut down and the commands dis- 
banded. The true situation was soon apparent to Gen. Lee. In pressing 
for Lynchburg he had to put himself in a dangerous predicament ; he was 
on a strip of land not more than seven or eight miles broad between the 
James and Appomattox rivers ; and the firing in front indicated that the 
outlet towards Lynchburg was closed by Sheridan, while Meade in the 
rear, and Ord south of the Court-house completed the environment and 
put Lee in a position from which it was impossible to extricate his army 
without a battle, which it was no longer capable of fighting. 

Early in the morning of the\9th, Gordon's corps was ordered to move 
to the front through Apomattox Court-house, passing the entire wagon 
and artillery train of the army. Lee's army had at this time dwindled 
down to eight thousand men with muskets in their hands. Gordon was 
thrown out with about two thousand men in front ; tlie wreck of Long- 
street's command covered the rear ; and between these thin lines was the 
remnant of the wagon train, and clinging to these thousands of unarmed 
stragglers, many of them famishing and too weak to carry their muskets. 



COEKESPONDENCE BETWEEN GENS. GRANT AND LEE. 707 

Such was tlie condition and disposition of Gen. Lee's forces when Gordon 
attempted the hxst desperate task of cutting his way through Sheridan's 
lines. The Confederate cavahy was drawn up in mass in the village. The 
fields, gardens, and streets were strewn with troops bivouacking in line of 
battle. In the early light of morning Gordon's corps marched through 
and to the west of the village. 

After leconnoitiing, it was discovered that the enemy in front was dis- 
mounted cavalry in heavy force. Dispositions were made for attack, and 
about ten o'clock Gordon's line was ordered forward. Tlie enemy's cavalry 
was easily driven back ; it seemed that an exit would be secured, until it 
was discovered that the cavalry was falling back upon large masses of in- 
fantry, which were hastening forward and just forming to advance. It 
was the turn of the Confederates to fall back. Gordon now sent word to 
Gen. Lee that the enemy was driving him back. Just as his divisions had 
formed anew to resist a flank movement of Sheridan, while the skirmish- 
ers were engaged, while the Richmond Howitzers (who had fired the first 
gun at Bethel), having already discharged one volley, were loading for an- 
other, a flag of truce appeared upon the scene, and the action suddenly and 
strangely ceased. 

The explanation of the cessation of hostilities was soon made known. 
"While the pursuit of Lee's army by Grant's overwhelming forces was still 
in progress, the following correspondence, commenced at Farmville, had 
taken place between the two commanders, terminated by Lee's seeking the 
fiinal interview, when he received the message referred to from Gordon : 



April 7, 1865. 

Gen. R. E. Lee, Commanding C. S. A. : 

General : The result of last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further 
resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it 
is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further efFu- 
sion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate South- 
em army, known as the Army of Northern Virginia. 

Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

U. S. GRANT, 

Lieutenant-Oeneral, commanding Annies of the United States. 



April 7, 1865. 

General : I have received yoar note of this day. Though not entirely of the opinion 
you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern 
Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, be- 
fore considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its sur- 
render. 

R. E. LEE, General. 

lo Likut.-Gen. it. S. Geant, Commanding Armies of the United States. 



708 THE LOST CAUSE. 



April 8, 1865. 

To Gen. 11. E. Lee, Commanding C. 8. A. : 

Oeneral : Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of the same date, asking the 
conditions on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia is 
just received. 

In reply, I would say, that peace being my fii'st desii'e, there is but one condition 
that I insist upon, viz. : 

That the men surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up aims again against the 
Government of the United States until properly exchanged. 

I will meet you, or designate oflScers to meet any officers you may name for the jjur- 
pose, at any point agreeable to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms 
upon which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received. 

Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant- General^ 

Commanding Armies of the United States. 



April 8, 1865. 

General : I received, at a late hour, your note of to-day in answer to mine of yester- 
day. 

I did not intend to propose the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, but to 
ask the terms of your proposition. To be frank, I do not think the emergency has 
arisen to call for the surrender. 

But as the restoration of peace should be the sole object of all, I desire to know 
whether your proposals would tend to that end. 

I cannot, therefore, meet you with a view to surrender the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia ; but so far as your proposition may affect the Confederate States forces under my 
command and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to meet you at 10 
A. M. to-morrow, on the old stage-road to Richmond, between the picket-lines of the 
two armies. 

Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

R. E. LEE, General G. 8. A. 

To I<iKnT.-GEW. Grant, Commanding Armies of the United States. 



April 9, 1865. 

To Gen. R. E. Lee, Com,ma,nding G. 8. A. : 

General : Your note of yesterday is received. As I have no authority to treat on the 
subject of peace, the meeting proposed for 10 A. m. to-day could lead to no good. I will 
state, however, General, that I am equally anxious for peace with yourself; and the 
whole North entertain the same feeling. The terms upon which peace can be had are 
well understood. By the South laying down their arms they will hasten that most de- 
sirable event, save thousands of human Utcs, and hundreds of millions of property not 
yet destroyed. 



COKEE8PONDENCE BETWEEN GENS. GRANT AND LEE. 709 

Sincerely hoping that all our difficulties may be settled without the loss of another 
life, I subscribe myself, 

Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

U. S. GRANT, 

Lieutenant- General United States Army. 



April 9, 18G5. 

General : I received your note of this morning on the picket-line, whither I had 
come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposition 
of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army. 

I now request an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of 
yesterday for that purpose. 

Very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 

R. E. LEE, General 

To Lieut.-Gen. Geajtt, Commanding Armies of the United States. 



April 9, 1865. 

Gen. R. E. Lee, Commanding C. 8. A. : 

Your note of this date is but this moment, 11.59 A. M., received. 
In consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburg road to 
the Farmville and Lynchburg road, I am, at this writing, about four miles west of 
Walter's Church, and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you. 

Notice sent to me on this road where you wish the inlei'view to take place, will meet 
me. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant- General. 



Appomattox Court-hotjse, April 9, 1865. 

Gen. R. E. Lee, Commanding G. 8. A. : 

In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th inst., I propose to 
receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit : 

Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an 
officer designated by me, the other to be retained by such officers as you may designate. 

The officers to give their individual parole not to take arms against the Government 
of the United States until properly exchanged ; and each company or regimental com- 
mander to sign a like parole for the men of their commands. 

The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over 
to the officers appointed by me to receive them. 

This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or 
baggage. 

This done, eucJi officer and man will le allowed to return to their hom£S, not to ho dis- 
turbed hy United 8tates autliority^ so long as they observe their parole and the laws in 
force where they may reside. 

Very respectfully, 

U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant- General. 



710 THE LOST CAUSE. 

HEADftUAETERS AeMT Of NORTHERN VIRGINIA, April S, iM* 

Lieut.-Gen. U. S. Grant, Commanding U. 8. A. : 

General : I have received your letter of this date, containing the terms of surrendcl 
of the Army of Northern Virginia, as proposed by you. As they are susbtautially t'ue 
same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th Inst., they are accepted. I will prooocd 
to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect. 

.Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

R. E. LEE, Generai 

The interview of tlie two commanders took place at the house of Mr. 
Wilmer McLean. It was a great occasion ; thrilling and wonderful mem- 
ories must have crowded upon these two men as they stood face to face. 
But the interview was very simple ; there was no theatrical circumstance ; 
there was not a sentimental expression in what was said. No man ab- 
horred anything melo-dramatic more than Gen. Lee. His manner with 
Grant bordered on taciturnity, but not so as to exhibit temper or mortifica- 
tion. " His demeanour," writes a Federal observer of the memorable 
scene, " was that of a thoroughly possessed gentleman who had a very dis- 
agreeable duty to perform, but was determined to get through it as well 
and as soon as he could." 

He had come to the interview attended only by Col. Marshall, one of 
his aides. With courteous greeting the two commanders proceeded at 
once and simply to business ; some explanations were required by Gen. 
Lee as to the meaning of certain phrases in the terms of surrender ; and 
without other question or remark the act that was to put out of existence 
the Army of Northern Virginia was reduced to form at a deal table. 

When Gen. Lee had been seen riding to the rear, the rumour of sur- 
render flew like wild-fire tlirough the Confederates. It might have been 
supposed that the worn and battered troops who watched on their arms 
for the result of the conference at McLean's house, would have been glad 
to welcome a termination of their sufierings, come in what form it might ; 
that they would feel a certan joy when a long agony was over. But such 
was not the display, when about half past three o'clock in the evening 
Gen. Lee was seen thoughtfully riding back to his headquarters, and it 
was known that the surrender had been completed. His leading ofiicers 
were assembled, anticipating the result and awaiting his return. When 
the terms of surrender were announced, they approached their great com- 
mander in turn, and shook hands, expressing satisfaction at his course, and 
regret at parting. The lines of battle that had awaited a possible renewal 
of the combat, were broken ; but there were no huzzas, no scattering, not 
an indecent shout ; but the men broke ranks to rush up to their beloved 



711 

commander, struggling with eacli other to wring him once more by the 
hand. It was a most affecting scene. Rough and rugged men, familiar 
with hardship, danger, and death in a thousand shapes, had tears in tlieir 
eyes, and choked with emotion as they thronged around their old chieftain, 
uttering words to lighten his burden and mitigate his pain. He had bo 
often himself uttered such words to them, when they bled on the battle- 
field or toiled on the weary march. Kow simple as ever, very serious but 
collected, with the marks of a Roman manhood yet about him, he turned 
to his soldiers, not to insult the occasion with a harangue or explanations 
or regrets, but merely to say, as the signs of tearless suffering gathered in 
his face : " Men, we have fought through the war together ; and I have 
done the best I could for you." 

The day after the surrender Gen. Lee took formal leave of his army in 
the following plain and manly address : 

IlEABaXJARTERS ArMT NORTHERN VIRGINIA, April 10, 1865. 

After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, 
the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers 
and resources. 

I need not tell the survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained 
steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them ; but 
feeling that valour and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for 
the loss that would have attended the continuation of the contest, I have determined to 
avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their 
countrymen. 

By the terms of agreement, officers and men can return to their homes, and remain 
there until exchanged. 

Tou wiU take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty 
faithfully performed ; and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you His 
blessing and protection. 

With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and 
a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of myself, I bid you an 
affectionate farewell. 

R. E. LEE, General. 

On the 12th April, the Army of Northern Yirginia had its last parade. 
On that day, in pursuance of an arrangement of the commissioners of sur- 
render, the troops marched by divisions to a spot in the neighbourhood of 
Appomattox Court-house, where they stacked arms and deposited accou- 
trements. About seventy-five hundred men laid down their arras ; but 
the capitulation included in addition some eighteen thousand stragglers 
who were unarmed, and who came up to claim the benefit of surrender and 
accept paioles. With remarkable delicacy, Gen. Grant was not present at 
the ceremony, and had not been visiole since his interview of the 9th with 
Gen. Lee. 



712 IHE LOST CAUSE. 

Indeed, this Federal commander had, in the closing scenes of tlie con* 
test, behaved with a magnanimity and decorum that must ever be remem- 
bered to his credit even by those who disputed his reputation in other 
respect?, and denied his claims to great generalship. He had with re- 
markable facility accorded honourable and liberal terms to the vanquished 
army. He did nothing to dramatize the surrender ; he made no triumphal 
entry into Richmond ; he avoided all those displays of triumph so dear to 
the Northern heart ; he spared everything that might wound the feel- 
ings or imply the humiliation of a vanquished foe. There were no 
indecent exultations ; no " sensations ; " no shows ; he received the sur- 
render of his adversary with every courteous recognition due an honour- 
able enemy, and conducted the closing scenes with as much simplicity as 
possible. 

In the afternoon of the 12th April, Gen. Lee, attended by five mem- 
bers of his staff, rode into Itichmond, and drew rein at his house on 
Franklin street. He passed on rapidly, as if to escape notice ; black- 
ened ruins threw their shadows across the way ; strange faces were 
on the streets ; but it was impossible for his commanding figure to 
j)ass without the challenge of curiosity, and there presently ran 
along the side-walks the shout, " It's Gen. Lee." Instantly there 
was a wild chase after the party of horsemen. The General simply 
raised his hat as he rode rapidly on ; dismounting, he shook hands 
with some that pressed upon him ; he showed an anxiety to enter his 
house, and in a few moments he had passed into the fondly-desired retire- 
ment of his simple home. 

In Washington the surrender of Gen. Lee's army was taken as the 
close of the war. No sooner was it known than Secretary Stanton imme- 
diately telegraphed an order to the headquarters of every army and depart- 
ment, and to every fort and arsenal in the United States, to fire a salute 
of two hundred guns in celebration of the event. To Grant he despatched : 
" Thanks be to Almighty God for the great victory with which He has this 
day crowned you and the gallant armies under your command. The 
thanks of this department, and of the Government, and of the people of 
the United States — their reverence and honour have been deserved — will 
be rendered to you and the brave and gallant officers and soldiers of your 
army for all time." 

A vast concourse of people assembled at the President's house to make 
the popular congratulations to Mr. Lincoln. There was music, illumina- 
tions ; the ground was ablaze with triumphal lights ; and the vast crowd 
called impatiently for a response from the President. It was a grand his- 
torical occasion ; one of great thoughts and imposing circumstances ; one 
for noble and memorable utterances. The President of the United States 
came forward, and called for the " rebel " song of " Dixie." He said : 



LAST JOKE OF PKESIDENT LINCOLN. 713 

" I Iiave always thought that ' Dixie ' was one of the best songs I ever 
heard. Our adversaries over the way, I know, have attempted to appro- 
priate it ; but I insist that on yesterday we fairly captured it. I referred 
the question to the attorney-general, and he gave it as his legal opinion 
that it is now our property. (Laughter and loud applause.) I now ask 
the band to give us a good turn upon it." It was the characteristic 8p(>e^-h 
and last joke of Abraham Lincoln. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

GSN. LKe's STTEEENDBR the DECISIVE EVENT OF THE WAE. — STRENGTH AND 8ITTJATT0N OF TIIK 
CONFEDERATE FORCES SOnTH OF VIRGINIA. — SURRENDER OF JOHNSTON's ARMY. — GEN. 

Johnston's line of retreat from raleigh. — Sherman's pursuit. — the conference 

AT DURHAM STATION. — SHERMAn's " MEMORANDUM OR BASIS OF AGREEMENT." HE AT- 
TEMPTS AN EXTRAORDINARY GAME OF HYPOCRISY. — HIS ASTOUNDING CONFESSIONS AT 
WASHINGTON. — CURIOUS SPEECH AT A SOLDIERS' FESTIVAL. — SHERMAn's CONVENTION 
WITH JOHNSTON REPUDIATED AT WASHINGTON. — JOHNSTON COMPELLED TO SURRENDER 
ON THE TERMS GIVEN LEE. — ^REVIEW OF THE SECTIONS OF CONFEDERATE DEFENCE. — OPER- 
ATIONS IN THE SOUTHWEST. — CAPTURE OF MOBILE. — WILSON's EXPEDITION. THE EXPE- 
dition of gen. canby against mobile and central alabama. — statements of his 
force. — the works and garrison of mobile. — siege of spanish fort. — gen. maury 
orders its evacuation. — capture of fort blakely. — evacuation of mobile. — how 
Wilson's cavalry was to co-operate with canby. — disposition of the forces of 
gens. forrest and roddy. — capture of selma, montgomery and columbus. — the 

HEROIC EPISODE OF WEST POINT. — WILSON ADVANCES UPON MACON. — NEWS OF SHERMAn'S 
TRUCE. — SURRENDER OF ALL THE CONFEDERATE FORCES IN ALABAMA, MISSISSIPPI AND 
EAST LOUISIANA. — THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. — SURRENDER OF GEN. SMITH. — HOPE OF PRO- 
LONGING THE WAR WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. — THE LAST CALCULATION OF " EURO- 
PEAN RECOGNITION." — SURRENDER OF THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI ARMY TO GEN. CANBY. — 
THE DOWNFALL OF THE CONFEDERACY COMPLETE.-SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE TERMINA- 
TION OF THE WAR. — ITS FLAT CONCLUSION. — NO GRAND CATASTROPHE. — EXPLANATION 
OF THIS. — THEORIES, TO ACCOUNT FOR THE FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERACY. — THE VUL- 
GAR ARGUMENT OF THE NUMERICAL SUPERIOURITY OF THE NORTH. — HOW THIS ARGUMENT 
IS DEFECTIVE, — THE TRUE BASIS OF COMPARISON BETWEEN THE MILITARY FORCES OF 
NORTH AND SOUTH. — THE NUMERICAL INEQUALITY NOT SUFFICIENT TO DETERMINE THE 
WAR AGAINST THE SOUTH. — INCONSISTENCY OF THIS ARGUMENT ON THE PART OF SOUTHERN 
LEADERS. — THE RELATION OF NUMBERS TO OTHER ELEMENTS OF THE CONTEST. — WHAT 
ADVANTAGES THE SOUTH HAD IN THE EXTENT AND FEATURES OF HER TERRITORY. — GEN- 
ERAL CONCLUSION, AND AN IMPORTANT REFLECTION CONSEQUENT UPON IT. 

The surrender of Gen. Lee was plainly tlie decisive event of the war, 
and drew after it rapid and iniportant consequences. The situation in the 
Atlantic States south of Virginia, was weak ; and that part of the Con- 
federacy had been for some time thorouglily demoralized. The limits of 
Johnston's command included North and South Carolina, Georgia and 



6URRENDEK OF JOHNSTOn's AKMT. 715 

Florida ; and tlie fate of tliis extensive military territory depended upon 
an army whose effective force was less than twenty thousand men. Gen. 
Jolniston's statement of the force at his command in the vicinity of 
Raleigh, was 18,578 total, infantry and artillery present for duty, of which 
not more than 14,179 were effective, with a cavali'y force little over live 
thousand. Florida was destitute of troops, and South Carolina was pretty 
much in the condition of a conquered province, there being no known 
Confederate force in it beyond a division of cavalry less than one thou- 
sand. Gen. Johnston found himself by the disaster in Virginia, opposed 
to a combined force of alarming magnitude ; there was great difficulty in 
supplying his troops; the enemy had already captured all workshops with- 
in the Confederacy for the preparation of ammunition and repairing of 
arms ; and thus embarrassed, crippled and disheartened, what was ac- 
counted in point of importance the second army of the Confederacy, num- 
bering on its rolls more than seventy thousand men, and yet reduced to 
less than one-third of this number by desertions and " absenteeism," aban- 
doned the hope of successful war, and prepared to surrender. 



SURRENDER OF JOHNSTON S ARMY. 

On the night of the 13tli April, Sherman's army had halted some four- 
teen miles from Raleigh, when it received the news of the surrender of 
Lee. The next day it occupied Raleigh ; Gen. Johnston having taken up 
a line of retreat by the railroad running by Ilillsboro, Greensboro, Salis- 
bury and Charlotte. Sherman commenced pursuit by crossing the cui-ve 
of that road in tlie direction of Ashboro, and Charlotte ; and after the head 
of his column had crossed the Cape Fear River at Avens Ferry, he re- 
ceived a communication from Gen. Johnston on the 15th April, asking if 
some arrangement could not be effected, which should prevent the further 
useless effusion of blood. It was eventually arranged that a personal in- 
terview should take place between the two commanders at a designated 
point; and on the 18tli April, they met at a farm-house, five miles from 
Durham Station, under a flag of truce. In proposing a surrender, Gen. 
tfohnstou wanted some more general concessions than had been made in 
the case of Gen Lee ; and the result was a military convention, which Gtin. 
Johnston declared that he signed " to spare the blootl of his gallant little 
army, to prevent further suffering of the people by the devastation and 
ruin inevitable from the marches of invading armies, and to avoid the crime 
of waging a hopeless war." This document, which we place here, was cer* 
tainly an extraordinary ona on Sherman's part. 



716 THE LOST CAUSE. 

JMemorajstdum, or Basis of Agreement, made this eujliteenth day of April, A. D. 1865, 
near Durham Station, in the State of North Carolina, Tjy and tetween Gen. Joseph E. 
Johnston, commanding Confederate Army, and Maj.-Gen. W. T. Shci'man, commanding 
Army of the United States, in North Carolina, loth being present : 

1. The contending armies now in tlie field to maintain the status quo, until notice is 
given by the commanding general of any one to its opponent, and reasonable time, say 
forty-eight hours, allowed. 

2. The Confederate armies now in existence to be disbanded, and conducted to 
their several State capitals, therein to deposit their arms and public property in the 
State arsenal, and each officer and man to execute and file an agreement to cease from 
acts of war, and to abide the action of both State and Federal authorities. The num- 
ber of arms and munitions of war to be reported to the chief of ordnance at Washing- 
ton City, subject to the future action of the Congress of the United States, and in the 
meantime to be used solely to maintain peace and order within the borders of the States 
respectively. 

3. The recognition by the Executive of the United States of the several State 
governments, on their officers and legislatures taking the oath prescribed by the Con- 
stitution of the United States ; and where conflicting State governments have resulted 
from the war, the legitimacy of all shall be submitted to the Supreme Court of the 
United States. 

4. The re-establishment of all Federal courts in the several States, with powers as 
defined by the Constitution and laws of Congress. 

5. The people and inhabitants of all these States to be guarantied, so far as the 
Executive can, their political rights and franchises, as well as their rights of person 
and property, as defined by the Constitution of the United States and of the States 
respectively. 

G. Tlie Executive authority of the Government of the United States not to disturb 
any of the people by reason of the late war, so long as they live in peace and quiet and 
abstain from acts of armed hostility, and obey the laws in existence at the place of their 
residence. 

7. In general terms, the war to cease — a general amnesty, so far as the Executive of 
the United States can command, on the condition of the disbandment of the Confed- 
erate armies, distribution of the arms, and the resumption of peaceable pursuits by the 
officers and men hitherto composing said armies. 

Not being duly empowered by our respective principals to fulfil these terms, we 
individually and officially pledge ourselves to promptly obtain an answer thereto, and 
to carry out the above programme. 

W. T. SHERMAN, Major- General, 

Commanding Army U. S. in N. C. 

J. E. JOHNSTON, General, 

Commanding C. S. A. in N. 0. 

Tlierc was mncli surprise on tlie part of tlie Soutliern people, that a 
man of Sliennan's furious antecedents and incendiary record in the war, 
Bliould exhibit such a spirit of liberality as contained in the above paper. 
But furtlier developments explained the apparent contradiction, and 
showed that Sherman intended the paper only as a snare ; that he was 
prepared to violate its spirit as soon as it was signed ; that he had made 
up his mind to disregard the paroles he took, and to refuse to protect 



HYPOCRISY OF GEN. SHERMAN. 717 

them ; and that he was performing a part of hypocrisy, the meanest it is 
possible to conceive. A few weeks after the conference at Durham 
Station, this man had the astounding hardihood to testify as follows 
before a committee of the Congress at AVashington : " It then occurred 
to me that I might write off some general propositions, meaning little^ or 
meaning much, according to the construction of parties — what I would 
term ' glittering generalities ' — and send them to "Washington, which 
I could do in four days. I therefore drew up the Memorandum (which 
has been published to the world) for the purpose of referring it to the 
proper Executive authority of the United States, and enabling him to 
define to me what I might promise, simply to cover the pride of the 
Southern men, who thereby became subordinate to the laws of the United 
States, civil and military. If any concessions were made in those general 
terms, they were made because I then believed, and now believe, they 
would have delivered into the hands of the United States the alsolute 
control of every Confederate officer and soldier, all their muster-rolls, 
and all their arms. 2 never designed to shelter a human heing from, any 
liability incurred in consequence of past acts to the civil tribunals of our 
country, and I do not believe a fair and manly interpretation of my terms 
can so construe them, for the words, " United States courts," " United 
States authorities," " limitations of executive power," occur in every para- 
graph. And if they seemingly yield terms better than the public would 
desire to be given to the Southern people, if studied closely and well, it 
will he found that there is an absolute submission on their part to the 
Government of the United States, cither through its executive, legislative, 
or judicial authorities." 

It is almost impossible to find terms, within the decent vocabulary of 
history, to characterize the effrontery and self-complacency of this con- 
fession of a game of 'hypocrisy with a conquered honorable adversary, 
surrendering his arms with full faith in the promises of the conqueror ! 
But even this record of double-dealing was to be surpassed. The man 
who affected so much generosity at Durham Station, and signed the name 
of " W. T. Sherman, Major-General, &c. " to the Memorandum quoted 
above, took occcasion, after the surrender of Lee and Johnston, to make 
the following speech at a soldiers' festival in the State of Ohio : — 

" When the rebels ventured their all in their efforts to destroy our Government, they 
pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honours to their cause. The 
Government accepted their wager of battle. Hence, when we conquered, we, h/ conquest, 
gained all they had — their property lecame ours hy conqtiest Thus they lost their slaves, 
their mules, their horses, their cotton, their all ; and even their lives and personal liberty, 
thrown by them into the issue, were theirs only hy our forbearance and clemency. So, 
soldiers, when we marched through and conquered the country of the rebels, we lecanu 
wmers of all they had, and I don't want you to be troubled in your consciences for 



718 THE LOST CAUSE. 

takin"', wliile on our great marcli, the jDroperty of conquered rebels. They forfeited 
thicir rights to it, and I, being agent for the Government to which I belonged, gave you 
authority to keep all the quartermasters couldn't take possession of or didn't want. 

Such an example of astounding inconsistency, such a record of iia- 
blushinf hypocrisy no public man could stand against for a day, except 
in that peculiar community of the North, where demagogueism and time- 
service are fair games, and " the smart man " gets the plaudits of the 
multitude, no matter in what line of conduct he asserts his ingenuity. 

It may well be imagined that the truce of Durham Station was dis- 
regarded at Washington, and that no time was lost there in repudiating 
the propositions contained in Sherman's basis of agreement, which, in the 
extravagant language of that amateur diplomatist, was to restore " peace 
to the banks of the Rio Grande." Of course, no plan could be entertained 
at Washington that substituted the simple idea of a restored Union for 
that of subjugation. The Federal Government, as is already apparent in 
these pages, was not likely to be satisfied with anything short of the abo- 
lition of slavery in the South, the extinction of the State governments, 
or their reduction to provisional establishments, and the programme ot 
a general confiscation of property. Sherman was censured and denounced 
in a way that shook his tactitious military reputation ; and it was said to 
be the madness of generosity to abolish the confiscation laws, and relieve 
" rebels " from all pains and penalties for their crimes. It was at once 
telegraphed fi'om Washington throughout the country, that Sherman's 
truce was disregarded, and that Grant would go to North Carolina to 
compel Johnston's surrender on the same terms as Gen. Lee had accepted. 
On this basis, the surrender was eventually made ; but Gen. Grant was 
generous enough to forbear taking control of Sherman's army, contenting 
himself with prompting that commander to what the AVashington Gov- 
ernment had declared should be the text of the negotiations. 

In following the logical chain of consequences of Gen. Lee's surrender, 
we are led to notice how each section of the Confederate defences gave 
way with this event. We have already seen how the cordon of the 
Atlantic States fell with Johnston's surrender ; and we shall now see how 
the system of Confederate defence fell in the Southwest ; and how, in a 
little time thereafter, the department of the Trans-Mississippi was pros- 
trated, completing the downfall of the Southern Confederacy. 



OPERATIONS IN THE SOUTHWEST — CAPTURE OF MOBILE — WILSON's EXPEDITION. 

As part of the general design of the Federal arms in 1865, a move- 
ment was prepared earl^-- in that year against the city of Mobile and the 



OPERATIONS IN THE SOUTH-WEST. 719 

interiour of Alabama. When Hood's ill-fated army was beaten and driven 
across the Tennessee River, the troops which Gen. Canby had sent to aid 
Thomas were returned, and, being heavily reinforced, prepared to under- 
take, with assured success, the capture of the city of Mobile — an enteiprise 
which had not yet been ventured upon, unless very remotely, by any 
Federal army. 

The works of Mobile were very strong, and the supplies of food were 
abundant for a siege. The heavy ordnance was excellent and well dis- 
posed. But tlie garrison was few in number, and the supply of ammu- 
nition was small. Other important interests of the Confederacy would 
admit of no more troops, nor of more ammunition being placed in Mobile. 

A large Federal army was soon collected on the waters near Mobile, 
with a very great naval force and a fleet of transports adequate to all the 
requirements of so great an expedition. Early in March, the preparations 
for attack seemed complete. But the weather was bad and unfavourable 
to operations. On the 25th March, Gen. Canby commenced to move his 
forces to the attack. Two corps of infantry, respectively commanded by 
Gens. Granger and A. J. Smith, (the whole commanded by Canby in per- 
son) marclied from their camp on and near Fish River, against the posi- 
tions occupied by Gen Maury at Spanish Fort and Blakely. 

The same day, a corps of infantry, with a strong force of cavalry, moved, 
under command of Gen. Steele, from Pensacola towards Salem, via Pol- 
lard. The whole of Canby's forces now in motion may be estimated at 
near sixty thousand effectives, being three corps of infantry, and about six 
thousand cavalry. 

The whole artillery and infantry effective force holding Mobile, under 
Gen. Maury's command, numbered less than eight thousand. His cavalry 
numbered less than fifteen hundred, and were not available in the siege 
operations. 

On the 26th March, Canby appeared in heavy force before Spanish 
Fort, and commmenced its siege. The same day, he threw a division as if 
against Fort Blakely, but did not yet take position for its siege. The 
position of Spanish Fort was about twelve miles from Mobile, on the east- 
ern shore of Appalachie River, about two and a half miles above its mouth. 
The position was important as commanding the batteries, Huger and 
Tracey, which held the Appalachie River. The fortifications when the 
siege commenced, consisted of a battery on the water of six heavy guns and 
of three detached redoubts (open in the gorge) connected by a lineof rifie- 
pits, with a line of abattis in front ; the whole sweeping in a sort of semi- 
circle, and resting both fianks on the river. The whole length of coast was 
about a mile and a half. Gen, Randall Gibson, of Louisiana, commanded 
the forces and conducted the defence of Spanish Fort. The garrison of 
Spanish Fort was made up of the veteran Louisiana brigade of Gibson, 



720 THE LOST CAUSE. 

(five hundred muskets), the veteran Alabama brigade, of Holtzclaw, 
(seven hundred muskets), and a brigade of Alabama hoys "under Brig.-Gen. 
Thomas, numbering about nine hmidred effectives. There were besides, 
several companies of the Twenty-second Louisiana heavy artillery, and 
tliree companies of light artillery. Soon after the siege commenced, the 
brigade of boy-reserves was exchanged for Eaton's Texans and Korth Car- 
olinians, which numbered only about five hundred muskets, and which 
made the whole infantry force about seventeen hundred muskets. 

The enemy pressed his siege energetically, but cautiously. The defence 
was vigourous, bold and defiant. The little garrison, when manning their 
works, as they did incessantly for sixteen days and nights, stood in single 
rank, and several feet apart. The experience of defence soon showed that 
many things were lacking ; but the troops vigourously applied' themselves 
to remedy the defects, and in a few nights had constructed traverses and 
bomb-proofs, and chevaux-de-frise and rifle-pits, which proved amply suf 
ficient for all their subsequent requirements. By energetic digging, the 
enemy managed to advance to within one hundred yards of portions of the 
main line of defence. He continually increased his batteries. He finally 
opened at close range, with a great number of wooden mortars ; and al 
though, in the early part of the operations, the skill and energy of Slocum'a 
and Massenberg's, and Potter's artillerists could always silence the 
enemy's guns, they were quite ineffective now, and towards the close, every 
gun of the Confederates was easily silenced. 

On the 8th April, Gen. Maury, after conference with Gen. Gibson, de- 
cided that the defence had been protracted long enough, and gave orders 
to commence that night to remove the surplus material, and stores, and 
men, so that by the night of the 11th, the whole force should be with- 
drawn. Early in the night of the 8th, the enemy made a forward move- 
ment on Gibson's left flank and established himself in such a position as 
would cut off farther communications by the river with Mobile, and im- 
peril the garrison. In pursuance of his general instructions, Gibson with- 
drew his garrison at once, and evacuated the position of Spanish Fort, 
necessarily leaving his guns and stores to the enemy. The garrison was 
immediately transferred to the city of Mobile, which, it was judged, would 
be soon attacked. Col. Fatten tansferred his headquarters to Battery 
Huger, upon which, and Tracey, would depend the defence of the Appa- 
lachie River. 

On the 31st March, Steele, who had marched with his corps from Fen- 
Bacola, had dispersed the cavalry force, which, under Clauton, opposed his 
advance at Fine Barren Creek, and occupied Follard ; and now sudden y 
appeared before Blakely and commenced to besiege it. 

Gen. St. John Liddell, of Louisiana, commanded the forces at Blakely, 
which consisted of about 2,300 muskets, and three or four companies of 



CAPTUEE OF MOBILE. 721 

artillery — in all about 2,600 effectives. The ground was better for defence 
than at Spanish Fort. Tlie works were better placed ; and it was believed 
that the enemy would make but slow progress in its siege. The garrison 
consisted of the Missouri brigade, about four hundred and fifty muskets, 
under Gates ; a Mississippi brigade, eight hundred muskets ; the brigade 
of Alabama boy-reserves, under Thomas, nine hundred muskets ; a regi- 
ment of Mississippi dismounted light artillerists armed with muskets, and 
several companies of artillery. 

Very little progress had been made in the siege of Blakely, when 
Spanish Fort was evacuated on the 8th April. During the following day, 
however, Canby was sending up his army from about Spanish Fort to- 
wards Blakely ; and in the evening, at" five o'clock, he made a grand as- 
sault with a column of twenty-five thousand infantry. After being re- 
pulsed on many parts of the line, he succeeded in overwhelming the little 
garrison, and capturing it with the position. 

Gen. Maury found his force now reduced to less than five thousand ef- 
fective infantry and artillery ; his ammunition almost exhausted ; and the 
city of Mobile, with its population of more than thirty thousand non-com- 
batants, exposed to the danger of assault and sack, by an army of more 
than fifty thousand men, ten thousand of whom were negroes. His in- 
structions from his superiour officer were to save his garrison, and evacuate 
the city whenever he should find that judicious defence could no longer 
be made, and that an opportunity of withdrawing the garrison was still 
open to him. 

On the night of the fall of Blakely, he resolved to evacuate Mobile, 
and save his army. On the morning of the 10th, the operations of the 
evacuation commenced. Many steamers were in the port prepared for 
this contingency ; upon them were hastily thrown such ordnance stores as 
remained fit for troops in the field, all of the light guns, and the best of the 
quartermaster's and commissary stores. The garrisons of the redoubts and 
batteries about the city were also embarked on these steamers, and sent 
up the Tombigbee river to Demopolis. The infantry forces accompanied 
the wagon train by the dirt road to Mendina or w^ere sent up on the cars. 
The large depots of commissary stores were turned over to the mayor of 
Mobile, for the use of the people of the city. 

In the morning of the 12th April, the evacuation was completed. Gen. 
Maury, with his staff, and the rear-guard of three hundred Louisianians, 
under Col. Lindsay, moved out of the city at daylight. Gen. Gibson re- 
mained to see to the execution of the orders, relative to the drawing in of 
the cavalry force of Col. Spence, which was to burn the cotton in the city, 
and then cover the rear of the army. After having seen to the execution 
of every order, Gen. Gibson directed the Mayor of the city to go out to 
the fleet with a white flag, and apprise the Federal authorities that Mobile 
46 



122 THE LOST CAUSE. 

had been entirely evacuated by the Confederate forces, and tbat no resist- 
ance would be offered to the enemy's entrance into the city. About two 
o'clock in the afternoon, Gen. Canby with his forces, marched into Mobile, 
and peaceably occupied it. 

The Federal navy took but little part in the operations. Two monitors 
were sunk by torpedoes in an attempt to cross Appalachie Bar, when the 
fleet desisted from further action. During the progress of the evacuation, 
the little isolated garrisons of Tracey and Huger, under Col. Patton's 
command, restrained and returned with great effect the heavy fire of the 
enemy's batteries on the eastern shore. Here was fired the last cannon 
for the Confederacy in the war. 

Whilst the operations against Mobile were in progress, a heavy move- 
ment of Federal cavalry was completing the plan of subjugation in the 
Southwest. An expedition, consisting of twelve thousand five hundred 
men, was placed under command of Gen. Wilson, who had been detailed 
from Thomas' army, and directed to make a demonstration, from East- 
port, at the head of steamboat navigation on the Tennessee Kiver upon 
Tuscaloosa and Selma, in favour of Canby's operations against Mobile and 
Central Alabama. 

On the 22d March, all the arrangements having been perfected, and 
the order of march designated, the movement began. At this time Gen. 
Forrest's forces were near West Point, Mississippi, one hundred and fifty 
miles southwest of Eastport, while Gen. Koddy occupied Montevallo, on 
the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad, nearly the same distance to 
the southeast. By starting on diverging roads, Wilson expected t'o leave 
the Confederates in doubt as to his real object, and compel their small 
bodies of cavalry to watch equally Columbus, Tuscaloosa and Selma. 

The enemy in full strength approached Selma on the 2d April, Gen. 
Forrest, after an affair with his advance near Ebenezer Church, had fallen 
back to Selma. He had developed Wilson's force, and knew that he would 
not be able to save the city with the limited force under his command ; 
but he determined to discharge what he considered to be his duty, and to 
make the best fight he could under the circumstances. The line of works 
was about four miles long. It was held by not more than three thousand 
men in all ; fully one-half of whom were undrilled, untrained militia, with 
old-fashioned muskets in their hands, and so strung out over the ground 
they had to defend, that they were from five to ten feet apart. Skirmish- 
ing commenced in front of the works about noon. About four or five 
o'clock, a charge was made against that part of the line near the point 
where the Selma and Meridian Railroad crossed the works, and which was 
held by a Kentucky brigade, under the command of Gen. Buford. After 
an obstinate fight, the position was carried ; the enemy came into posses- 
sion of one of the most important depots in the southwest ; and having oc- 
i 



DEFENCE OF WEST POINT. 723 

cupied Selma, destroyed the arsenals, foundries, arms, stores and military 
munitions of every kind. Gen. Forrest escaped with a portion of his com- 
mand. Having captured Sehna, and communicated with Gen. Canby, 
"Wilson determined to move by the way of Montgomery into Georgia, and 
after breaking up raih'oads, and destroying stores and anny supplies, in 
that State, to march thence as rapidly as possible to the theatre of opera- 
tions in North Carolina and Virginia. On the l2th April, his advance 
guard reached Montgomery and received the surrender of the city. Tlience 
a force marched direct on Columbus, and another on West Point. Both 
of these places were assaulted and captured on the IGtli ; but at West 
Point, tliere was an episode of desperate Confederate valour in the dreary 
story of a country overrun almost without resistance. 

Gen. R. C. Tyler, with an obstinate heroism, unsurpassed during the 
war, determined to hold West Pont, with less than three hnndred men. 
lie believed the maintenance of his post, and the delay of the opposing 
forces from crossing the Chattahoochie at that point, an essential aid to the 
defence of Columbus ; and although his garrison was a feeble one, impro- 
vised, for the most part, from the citizens, he did not hesitate a moment in 
what he regarded the duty of a soldier, to hold his post at whatever sacri- 
fice, to the last extremity. It was a hopeless defence, except for the pur- 
poses of delaying the enemy ; and it was protracted until the brave and 
devoted commander had fallen dead with his sword in his hand. 

This memorable defence of West Point was made in a small work — 
Fort Tyler — about half a mile from the centre of the town. Firing contin- 
uously with large cannon and rifles, the enemy slowly and cautiously ap- 
proached the gallant little band of heroes until within about twenty steps 
of them. Then, with loud yells, they attempted to scale the works, but 
were repulsed and held at bay until all the ammunition in the fort had 
been exhausted ; and then, when the Federals were in the ditch around 
the fort, the brave and gallant men inside of it, hurled stones, and even 
their unbayonetted guns, upon them. The Confederate flag was never 
hauled down, until by the Federals, nor any white flag hoisted until tlie 
enemy had leaped the parapet. 

In referring to the affair of West Point, a Southern newspaper that yet 
dared to speak its mind, said : " A more gallant instance of devotion has 
never been known since the time of Charles, King of Sweden, when he, 
with his body-guard and a few house servants, in the heart of the enemy's 
country, defended himself against an entire army of Turks, until his place 
of retreat was bm-ned to the ground by lighted arrows from the assaulting 
party." 

On the 21st, Wilson, having united his forces, approached Macon, 
which was defended by Gen. Howell Cobb, with a small force, mostly 



724: THE LOST CAUSE. , 

militia. IVitliin thirteen miles of the town, he was met by a flag of trucF^ 
bearing the following communication : 



Headquaktebs Department Tennessee and Oeoroia, 
Macon, April 20, 1865. 



\ 

To the Commanding Oeneral of the United States Forces : 

General : I have just received from Gen. G. T, Beauregard, my immediate com 
mander, a telegraphic dispatch of which the following is a copy : 

" Geeensboro', April 19, 1865. ) 
" Via Columbia 19th, via Avqubta 20th.. ) 

" Maj.-Gen. H. Cobb : Inform General commanding enemy's forces in your front, 
that a truce for the purpose of a final settlement was agreed upon yesterday between 
Gens. Johnston and Sherman applicable to all forces imder their commands. A message 
to that eflfect from Gen. Sherman wiU be sent him as soon as practicable. The contend- 
ing forces are to occupy their present position, forty-eight hours' notice being given of a 
resumption of hostilities. " G. T. Beauregaed, 

" General Second in Command." 

My force being a portion of Gen. Johnston's command, I proceed at once to execute 
the terms of the armistice, and have accordingly issued orders for the carrying out the 
same. I will meet you at any intermediate point between our respective lines, for the 
purpose of making the necessary arrangements for a more perfect enforcement of the 
armistice. This communication will be handed to you by Brig.-Gen. F. H. Kobinson. 

I am, General, very respectfully yours, 

HOWELL COBB, 

Major-General Commanding, etc. 

This notice led to a correspondence, not necessary to be included here, 
and was ultimately followed by the final capitulation of the Confederate 
forces east of the Chattahoochie. The destruction of iron-works, foun- 
dries, arsenals, supplies, ammunition, and provisions in Alabama and 
Georgia was irreparable ; the Confederacy east of the Mississippi was evi- 
dently in a state of collapse ; and — the news of Johnston's surrender hav- 
ing traversed the country — Gen. Dick Taylor, on the 4:th May, surrendered 
to Gen. Canby " the forces, munitions of .war, etc., in the Department of 
Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana." The terms of surrender were 
essentially the same as those accorded to Lee and Johnston : oflBcers and 
men to be paroled until duly exchanged or otherwise released by the 
United States ; oflScers to give their individual paroles ; commanders of 
regiments and companies to sign paroles for their men ; arms and muni- 
tions to be given up to the United States ; officers and men to be allowed 
to return to their homes, and not to be molested so long as they kept their 
paroles and obeyed the laws where they resided, but persons resident in 
Northern States not to return without permission ; officers to be allowed 
to retain their side-arms, private horses, and baggage ; horses, the private 
property of enlisted men, not to be taken from them, but they be allowed 



SURRENDER OF KIRBY SMITH'S ABMY. 725 

to retain them for private purposes only. Thus, in the first days of May, 
all of the Confederate forces east of the Mississippi Eiver had been 
surrendered. 



THE TRAKS-MISSISSEPPI — SURRENDER OF GEN. SMITH. 

Although since the loss of Vicksburg, and with it the Confederate con- 
trol of the Mississippi River, what was known as the Trans-Mississippi, 
had been to a great extent isolated, and but little able to contribute eflec- 
tively to the Confederate cause, yet men- remembered that it was a country 
of vast resources ; and a general notion had long prevailed at Richmond 
that in the last extremity of fortune the Confederacy might here find a 
refuge. Even after the sum of disasters just narrated, it was hoped that 
the Trans-Mississippi would hold out, and the struggle be protracted until 
European interference might possibly occur to the relief of the Southern 
people ; for throughout the war they had persisted in the belief that Eng- 
land and France had withheld recognition of the Confederacy only on the 
assumption that it would certainly accomplish its independence without 
involving them, and the conclusion was fair that on the failure of this 
assumption they would not hesitate to act. 

In a general order of Gen. Kirby Smith, issued at Shreveport, on the 
news of the surrender of Lee, he declared to the Confederate troops of the 
Trans-Mississippi that if they held out, they would speedily and surely 
receive the aid of nations who already deeply sympathized with them. 
He added : " The great resources of the department, its vast extent, the 
numbers, discipline, and the efficiency of the army, will secure to our 
country terms that a proud people can with honour accept, and may, un- 
der the providence of God, be the means of checking the triumph of our 
enemy, and securing the final success of our cause." 

But the last hope of the Confederacy was quickly to expire. To the 
lively and sanguine address of Gen. Smith there was but little response in 
the public mind. When the full extent of the disasters east of the Missis- 
sippi River was known ; when the news came that a force of the enemy 
under Sheridan, had been put in motion for Texas ; and when in the face 
of these announcements it was perceived that nothing but straggling rein- 
forcements could be expected from the other side of the Mississippi, the 
consequence was that such demoralization ensued in Gen. Smith's army, 
and extended to the people of Texas, that that commander concluded to 
negotiate terms of surrender. On the 26th May, and before the amval 
of Sheridan's forces, he surrendered what remained of his command to 
Gen. Canby. The last action of the war had been a skirmish near Brazos, 



726 THE LOST CAUSE. 

in Texas. "With the surrender of Gen. Smith the war ended, and from the 
Potomac to the JRio Grande there was no longer an armed soldier to resist 
the authority of the United States. 



Most of the wars memorable in history have terminated with some 
momentous and splendid crisis of arms. Generally some large decisive 
battle closes the contest ; a grand catastrophe mounts the stage ; a great 
scene illuminates the last act of the tragedy. It was not so with the war 
of the Confederates. And yet there had been every reason to anticipate 
a dramatic termination of the contest. A war had been fought for four 
years ; its scale of magnitude was unprecedented in modern times ; its 
operations had extended from the silver thread of the Potomac to the 
black boundaries of the western deserts ; its track of blood reached four 
thousands of miles ; the ground of Virginia had been kneaded with human 
flesh ; its monuments of carnage, its spectacles of desolation, its altars of 
sacrifice stood from the wheat-fields of Pennsylvania to the vales of New 
Mexico. It is true that the armies of the Confederacy had been dreadfully 
depleted by desertions ; but in the winter of 1864:-'5, the belligerent re- 
public had yet more than a hundred thousand men in arms east of the 
Mississippi River. It was generally supposed in Richmond that if the 
Confederate cause was ever lost it would be only when this force had been 
massed, and a decisive field fixed for a grand, multitudinous battle. This idea 
had run through the whole period of the war ; it was impossible in Rich- 
mond to imagine the close of the contest without an imposing and splendid 
catastrophe. In the very commencement of the war, when troops were 
gaily marching to the first line of battle in Yirginia, President Davis had 
made an address in the camj)s at Rockett's, declaring that whatever misfor- 
tunes might befall the Confederate arms, they would rally for a final and 
desperate contest, to pluck victory at last. He said to the famous Hamp- 
ton Legion : " When the last line of bayonets is levelled, 1 will be 
with you." 

How far fell the facts below these dramatic anticipations ! The contest 
decisive of the tenure of Richmond and the fate of the Confederacy was 
scarcely more than what may be termed an " affair," with reference to the 
extent of its casualties, and at other periods of the war its list of killed 
and wounded would not have come up to the dignity of a battle in the 
estimation of the newspapers. Gen. Lee's entire loss in killed and 
wounded, in the series of engagements that uncovered Richmond and put 
him on his final retreat, did not exceed two thousand men. The loss of 
two thousand men decided the fate of the Southern Confederacy ! The 
sequence was surrender from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. The whole 
fabric of Confederate defence tumbled down at a stroke of arms that did 



FLAT CONCLUSION OF THE WAU. 727 

not amount to a battle. There was no last great convulsion, sucli as usu- 
ally marks the final struggles of a people's devotion or the expiring houra 
of their desperation. The word " surrender " travelled from Virginia to 
Texas. A four years' contest terminated with the smallest incident of 
blood-shed ; it lapsed ; it passed by a rapid and easy transition into a pro- 
found and abject submission. 

There must be some explanation of this flat conclusion of the war. It 
is easily found. Such a condition could only take place in a thorough 
demoralization of the armies and people of the Confederacy ; there must 
have been a general decay of public spirit, a general rottenness of public 
affairs when a great war was thus terminated, and a contest was aban- 
doned so short of positive defeat, and so far from the historical necessity 
of subjugation. 

There has been a very superficial, and, to some people, a very pleasant 
way of accounting for the downfall of the Southern Confederacy, by simply 
ascribing it to the great superiourity of the North in numbers and re- 
sources. This argument has had a great career in the newspapers and in 
small publications ; and the vulgar mind is easily imposed upon by the 
statistical parallel and the arithmetical statement, inclined as it is to limit 
its comprehension of great historical problems to mere material views of 
the question. We shall give this argument the benefit of all it contains, 
and state it in its full force. Thus, it is correctly said that official reports 
in Washington show that there were called into the Federal service from 
the Northern States 2,656,553 men during the war, and that this number 
is quite one-third as many as all the white men, women, and children of 
the Southern States. Again, the figures in the War Department at Wash- 
ington show that on the 1st of May, 1865, the military force of the North 
was 1,000,516 men of all arms ; while the paroles taken in the Confederacy 
officially and conclusively show that the whole number of men within its 
limits under arms was exactly 174,223. Thus, it is said, putting the num- 
ber 1,000,516 against 174,223, and taking into account the superiourity of 
the North in war materiel^ there is sufficient reason for the failure of the 
Confederate cause without looking for another. 

This explanation of failure is of course agreeable to the Southern 
people. But the historical judgment rejects it, discovers the fallacy, and 
will not refuse to point it out. It is simply to be observed that the dis- 
parity of military force, as between North and South stated above, is not 
the natural one ; and that the fact of only 174,223 Confederates being un- 
der arms in the last period of the war was the result of mal-administration, 
the defective execution of the conscription law, the decay of the volunteer 
spirit, tlic unpopularity of the war, and that these are the causes which lie 
beyond this arithmetical inequality, which, in fact, produced the greater 
part of it, and which must be held responsible in the explanation. The 



728 THE LOST CAUSE. 

fallacy consists in taking the very results of Confederate mal-administra- 
tion, and putting them in comparison against a full exhibition of Northern 
power in the war. 

The only just basis of comparison between the military forces of Korth 
and South is to be found in a careful parallel statement of the populations. 
This excludes all question of administration and political skill. For- 
tunately we have precise data for the estimate we propose. If we add to 
the Free States the four Slave States that followed their lead, under more 
or less compulsion, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, and to 
these the districts at Federal command from an early period of the war, 
gay half of Tennessee and Louisiana and a third of Virginia, we have a 
population, by the census of 1860, of 23,485,723 on the Federal side. 
This leaves under the rule of the Confederacy 7,662,325. There is no 
doubt that this superiourity of the North in numbers had great weight ; 
that it contributed much to the discomfiture of the Confederacy ; that it 
inust be taken largely into any explanation of the results of the war — but 
the great question, at last, remains, was this numerical inequality, of itself, 
sufficient to determine the war in favour of the North, considering the 
great compensation wliich the South had in superiour animation, in the 
circumstance of fighting on the defensive, and, above all, in the great ex- 
tent of her territory. We fear that the lessons and examples of history 
are to the contrary, and we search in vain for one instance where a coun- 
try of such extent as the Confederacy has been so thoroughly subdued by 
any amount of military force, unless where jpojpular demoralization has 
gujpei'vened. If war was a contest on an open plain, where military forces 
fight a duel, of coui-se that inferiour in numbers must go under. But war 
is an intricate game, and there are elements in it far more decisive than 
that of numbers. At the beginning of the war in America all intelligent 
men in the world and the Southern leaders themselves knew the disparity 
of population and consequently of military force as between the North and 
South ; but they did not on that account determine that the defeat of 
the South was a foregone conclusion, and the argument comes with a bad 
grace from leaders of the Confederacy to ascribe now its failure to what 
stared them in the f^ice at the commencement of the contest, and was then 
BO lightly and even insolently dismissed from their calculation. The judg- 
ment of men who reflected, was that the South would be ultimately the 
victor, mainly because it was impossible to conquer space / that her sub- 
jection was a " geographical impossibility ; " that three millions of men 
could not garrison her territory ; that a country so vast and of such pecu- 
liar features— not open as the European countries, and traversed every- 
where by practicable roads, but wild and difficult with river, mountain, 
and swamp, equivalent to successive lines of military fortifications, welted, 
as it were, with natural mounds and barriers — could never be brought un« 



' EEFLECnONS ON THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. 729* 

der subjection to the military power of the ISTortli. And these views were 
severely just ; they are true forever, now as formerly ; but they proceeded 
on the supposition that the nnoralc of the Confederacy woukl be preserved, 
and when the hypothesis fell (mainly through mal-administration in Kich- 
mond) the argument fell with it. 

Tliere is but one conclusion that remains for the dispassionate student 
of history. Whatever may be the partial explanations of tlie downfall of 
the Southern Confederacy, and whatever may be the various excuses that 
passion and false pride, and flattery of demagogues, may ofier, the great 
and melancholy fact remains that the Confederates, with an abler Govern- 
ment and more resolute spirit, might have aecomplished their inde- 
pendence. 

This reflection irresistibly couples another. Civil wars, like private 
quarrels, are likely to repeat themselves, where the unsuccessful party has 
lost the contest only through accident or inadvertence. The Confederates 
have gone out of this war, with the proud, secret, deathless, dangerous con- 
sciousness that they are the better men, and that there was nothing want- 
ing but a change in a set of circumstances and a firmer resolve to make 
them the victors. To deal with such a sentiment, to keep it whipped, to 
restrain it from a new experiment requires the highest efibrts of intellect, 
the most delicate offices of magnanimity and kindness, and is the great task 
which the war has left to American statesmanship. Would it be strange, 
in a broad view of history, that the North, pursuing a policy contrary to 
what we have indicated, and venturing upon new exasperation and de- 
fiance, should realize that the South has abandoned the contest of the last 
four years, merely to resume it in a wider arena, and on a larger issue, and 
in a change of circumstances wherein may be assertod the profit of ex- 
perience, and raised a new standard of Hope ! 

* The lapse of twelve pages after 729 is accounted for by the omission to number the steel 
plate pages in their order. See list of Illustrations. 



CHAPTER XLIY. 

PBOPEK LIMIT OF THE NARRATIVE OF THE WAR. — A GLAHTOE AT ITS POLITICAL OONSEQUENOES. 
— GENERAL CONDITION OF THE SOUTH AFTER THE WAR. — ALTERNATIVE OF POLICIES AX 
WASHINGTON. — HIDEOUS PROGRAMME OP THE RADICALS. — THE POLICY OF RECONCILIA- 
TION. — ENLIGHTENED LESSON OF HISTORY. — THE PROBLEM OF " RECONSTRUCTION." — 
COINCIDENCE OF MODERATE REPUBLICANS WITH THE CONSERVATIVE PLAN. — POSITION OF 
PRESIDENT JOHNSON. — ESTIMATE OF THE VIEWS AND CHARACTER OF THE NEW PRESIDENT. 
— HIS SCHOOL OF POLITICS, MIDWAY BETWEEN THOSE OF CALHOUN AND HAMILTON. — A 

HAPPY POSITION. — THE GREAT HISTORICAL ISSUE. SERIES OF RADICAL MEASURES IN 

CONGRESS. — THE BLINDNESS OF DESPOTISM. — PLAIN CONSEQUENCES OF THE RADICAL 

POLICY. — THE residuum of state rights claimed by the south. — president John- 
son's DECLARATION OF ANOTHER WAR. — HAVE THE AMERICANS A GOVERNMENT ? — DIF- 
FERENCES OF OPINION IN THE SOUTH, CORRESPONDENT TO THE DIVISION OF PARTIES IN 
THE NORTH. — A SMALL AND DETESTABLE FACTION OF TIME-SERVERS. — NOBLE DECLARA- 
TION OF EX-PRESIDENT DAVIS. — ELOQUENT APPEAL OF HENRY A. WISE. — BASIS FOR A 
NEW SOUTHERN PARTY. — THE SOUTH TO SURRENDER ONLY WHAT THE WAR CONQUERED. 
— WHAT THE WAR DETERMINED, AND WHAT IT DID NOT DETERMINE. — THE NEW ARENA 

OF CONTEST AND " THE WAR OF IDEAS." COARSE AND SUPERFICIAL ADVICE TO THB 

SOUTH ABOUT MATERIAL PROSPERITY. AN ASPIRATION OF GOV. ORR OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

THE SOUTH SHOULD NOT LOSE ITS MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DISTINCTIVENESS AS A 

PEOPLE. QUESTIONS OUTSIDE THE PALE OF THE WAR. RIGHTS, DUTIES AND HOPES OV 

THE SOUTH. — WHAT WOULD BE THE EXTREMITY OF HER HUMILIATION. 

The record of the war closes exactly with tlie laying down of the Con- 
federate arms. We do not design to transgress this limit of our narrative. 
But it will not be out of place to regard generally the political conse- 
quences of the war, so far as they have been developed in a formation of 
parties, involving the further destinies of the country, and in the light of 
whose actions will probably be read many future pages of American 
History. 

The surrender of Gen. Lee's army was not the simple act of a defeated 
and overpowered General ; it was not the misfortune of an iudivddual. 
The public mind '•{ the South was fully represented in that surrender. 



TWO POLICIES OF " KECONSTRUCTIOX." 743 

The people bad become convinced tbat the Confederate cause was ?ost ; 
they saw that the exertions of four years, misdirected and abused, had not 
availed, and they submitted to wliat they conceived now to be t]ie deter- 
mined fortune of the war. 

That war closed on a spectacle of ruin, the greatest of modern times. 
There were eleven great States lying prostrate ; their capital all absorbed ; 
their fields desolate ; their towns and cities ruined ; their public works 
torn to pieces by armies ; their system of labour overturned ; the fruits of 
the toil of generations all swept into a chaos of destruction ; their slave 
proj)erty taken away by a stroke of the pen ; a pecuniary loss of two thou- 
sand millions of dollars involved in one single measure of spoliation — a 
penalty embraced in one edict, in magnitude such as had seldom been ex- 
acted unless in wars synonymous with robberies. 

As an evidence of the poverty of the South, produced by the war, we 
may cite the case of the State of South Carolina. By the census of ISGO, 
the property of the State was value at $400,000,000. Of this, it has been 
estimated that the injuiy to the banks, private securities, railroads, cities, 
houses, plantations, stock, etc., amounted to $100,000,000. There were, 
by the same census, 400,000 slaves, valued at $200,000,000. This left 
only $100,000,000 for the value of all the property left in the State ; and 
the principal portion of this consisted of lauds, which had fallen in value 
immensely. 

The close of the war presented the Government at Washington with 
the alternative of two distinct and opposite policies, with reference to the 
subdued Southern States. One was the policy of the restoration of the 
Union with reconciliation : the other the policy of restriction. The party 
that favoured the latter was not long in developing the full extent of its 
doctrine, which involved universal confiscation at the South, a general 
execution of prominent men, the disfranchisement of men who acted or 
sympathized with the Confederates, and the granting of the right of voting 
to the freed blacks. This hideous programme was announced not only as 
a just punishment of " rebels," but as a security for the future, and the in- 
dispensable condition of the public peace. 

But to men who had read the lessons of history it was clearly appar- 
ent that this policy would be destructive of the very ends it proposed ; 
that it would increase the acerbity of feeling at the South ; that it would 
deliver the two races over to the most violent discord ; and thnt it would 
be the occasion of immeasurable chaos and interminable anarchy. It was 
the immortal Burke who uttered the great philosophical truth of history : 
that " liberty, and not despotism, was the cure of anarchy ;" and who pro- 
posed as the speedy and sovereign remedy for the disorders of the Col- 
Dnies, that they should be " admitted to a share in the British Con- 
stitution." 



7-14 THE LOST CAUSE. 

It was precisely this enlightened lesson which those who agreed in the 
sentiment of clemency, proposed to apply to the condition of the Southern 
States. It was this party which took its instruction from exalted schools 
of statesmanship ; which looked at the situation from the eminence of His- 
tory ; and which desired to bind up with the Federal authority the rights, 
peace, and prosperity of all parts of the country. 

Obviously the policy of this party, with reference to what was called 
" Reconstruction," was to consider the Southern States as in the Union, 
without any ceremonies or conditions other than what might be found in 
the common Constitution of the country. What may be designated gen- 
erally as the Conservative party in the North, had long held the doctrine 
that, as the Union was inviolable and permanent, secession was illegal, rev- 
olutionary, null, and void ; that it had no legal validity or effect ; that it 
was the act of seditious individuals, and did not affect the status of the 
States purporting to secede. This branch of their doctrine was accepted 
by a large number of the Republican party ; among them Mr. Seward, 
the Secretary of State. President Lincoln had acted upon this theory 
when it became necessary to reorganize States overrun by Federal armies. 
It was held by the Conservative party, against all rational dispute, that 
the business of the Federal Government, with respect to the insurgent 
States, was simply to quell resistance, and to execute everywhere the 
Constitution and laws. Its contest was not with the States, but with the 
illegal powers within the States engaged in resisting its authority. When 
the resistance of these persons ceased, the work was done ; and the States 
were co instante^ ipso facto, as much within the Union as ever ; no act of 
re-admission being necessary. It only remained for the judiciary to pro- 
ceed by indictment and legal trial, under the forms of law, against the in* 
dividuals who had resisted the authority of the Union to test the fact of 
treason, and to vindicate the reputation of the Government. And this 
was the whole extent to which the policy of penalities could be insisted 
upon. 

On this opinion there was soon to be a sharp and desperate aiTay of 
parties at Washington. When, by the tragical death of President Lin- 
coln, in a public theatre, at the hands of one of the most indefensible but 
courageous assassins that history has ever produced, the Executive office 
passed to the Yice-President, Andrew Johnson, the Southern people 
io-norantly deplored the change as one to their disadvantage, and the 
world indulged but small expectations from the coming man. The new 
President was sprung from a low order of life, and was what Southern 
gentlemen called a " scrub." In qualities of mind it was generally con- 
sidered that he had the shallowness and fluency of the demagogue ; but in 
this there was a mistake. At any rate, it must.be confessed, Mr. Johnson 
had no literature and but little education of any sort ; in his agrarian 



POLITICS AND CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON. 745 

speeches in the Senate, he quoted " the Lays of Ancient Rome " as " trans- 
lated by Macaulaj ; " and he was constantly making those mistakes in 
historical and literary allusions which never fail to characterize and betray 
Belf-educated men. Before his elevation to the Presidency, Mr. Johnson 
was considered a demagogue, who seldom ventured out of common-places, 
or attempted anything above the coarse sense of the multitude, successful, 
industrious, a clod-head, a " man of the people," that peculiar product of 
American politics. But there are familiar instances in history where char- 
acters apparently the most common-place and trifling, have been suddenly 
awakened and elevated as great responsibilities have been thrust upon 
them, and have risen to the demands of the new occasion. An example of 
such change was afibrded by plain Andrew Johnson, when he stepped to 
the dignity of President of a restored Union, with all its great historical 
trasts for him to administer in sight of the world. From that hour the 
man changed. The eminence did not confound him ; he saw before him 
a part in American history second only to that of George Washington ; 
he left behind him the ambitions and resentments of mere party ; he rose 
as the man who has been secretly, almost unconsciously, great — a common- 
place among his neighbour, the familiar fellow of the company — suddenly, 
completely to the full height and dignity of the new destiny that called 
him. The man who had been twitted as a tailor and condemned as a 
demagogue, proved a statesman, measuring his actions for the future, in- 
sensible to clamour and patient for results. 

President Johnson belonged to an intermediate school of politics, stand- 
ing between the doctrines of Mr. Calhoun and those of Alexander Hamil- 
ton. He was never an extreme Stato-Rights man ; he had never recog- 
nized the right of nullification, or that of secession ; but he was always 
disposed to recognize, in a liberal degree, the rights of the States, and to 
combat the theory that the Federal Government absorbed powei-s and 
privileges, which, from the foundation of the republic, had been conceded 
to the States. 

It was fortunate that the Chief Magistrate of the country, who was to 
administer its affairs and determine its course on the close of the war, occu- 
pied this medium ground in politics — the one that suggested the practica- 
bility of compromise, and assured a conservative disposition in a time of 
violent and critical dispute. It was natural that on the close of hostilities 
the tide of public opinion should have set strongly in favour of Consolida- 
tion ; and that men should apply the precedent of powers used in the war, 
to the condition of peace. The great question which the war had left, waa 
as to the form and spirit of the Government that ensued upon it — in short, 
the determination of the question whether tlie experience of the past four 
years had been a Constitutional Revolution, or the mere decision of certain 
special and limited questions. This was the great historical issue. The 



746 THE LOST CAUSE. 

political controversies which figured in the newspapers were only its inci- 
dents ; and the questions which agitated Congress all sounded in the great 
dispute, whether the war had merely accomplished its express and particu 
lar objects, or given the American people a change of i)olitj, and dated 
a new era in their Constitutional history. 

At the time these pages are committed to the press, a series of meas- 
ures has already been accomplished or introduced by the Radical party in 
the Congress at Washington that would accomplish a revolution in the 
American system of government, the most thorough and violent of modern 
times. Propositions have been made so to amend the Constitution as to 
deprive the States of the power to define the qualifications of electors ; 
propositions to regulate representation by tlie number of voters, and not of 
population ; propositions to declare what obligations assumed by the 
States shall be binding on them, and what shall be the purposes of their 
taxation. What is known as the Civil Rights Bill (passed over the Presi- 
dent's veto) has not only established negro equality, but has practically 
abolished, on one subject of jurisdiction at least, State laws and State 
courts. In short, the extreme Black Republican party at Washington has 
sought to disfranchise the whole Southern people, to force negro suffrage 
upon the South, to prevent the South from being represented in Congress 
eo as to perpetuate the power of the Radicals, and afford them the means 
of governing the Southern States as conquered and subjugated territories. 

The practical fault of all Despotism is that it takes too little into ac- 
count the sentimentalism which opposes it, and attempts to deal with men 
as inanimate objects, to which the application of a certain amount of force 
for a desired end is decisive. It never considers feelings and prejudices. 
It does not understand that in the science of government there are ele- 
ments to conciliate as well as forces to compel. The Northern radicals 
look to the dragoon with his sword, the marshal with his process of confis- 
cation, and the negro thrust into a false position as the pacificators of the 
country and the appropriate sentinels of the South. They never reflect on 
the results of such measures upon the feelings of the Southern people ; 
they do not estimate the loss in that estrangement which makes unprofit- 
able compam'ons ; they do not imagine the resentments they will kindle ; 
they do not calculate the effect of a constant irritation that at last wears 
into the hearts of a people, and makes them ready for all desperate enter 
prises. 

If on this subject the Northern people are best addressed in the lan- 
guage of their interests, they may be reminded that the policy of the Radi- 
cals is to detain and embarrass the South, not only in the restoration of 
her political rights, but in her return to that material prosperity, in which 
the North has a partnership interest, and the Government itself its most 
important financial stake. Tlie Southern people must be relieved from the 



THE " EESIDXIUM " OF STATE EIGHTS. 747 

apprehension of confiscation, and other kindred measures of oppression, be- 
fore they can be expected to go to work and improve their condition. 
They must be disabused of the idea that the new system of labour is to be 
demoralized by political theories, before giving it their confidence, and en- 
larging the experiment of it. The troubled sea of politics nmst be com- 
posed before the industry of the South can return to its wonted channels, 
and reach at last some point of approximation to former prosperity. 

The financiers at Washington consider it of the utmost importance that 
the South should be able to bear its part of the burden of the national 
debt, and by its products for exchange contribute to the reduction of this 
debt to a specie basis. The whole edifice of Northern prosperity rests 
on the unstable foundation of pap6r credit. Every man in the North 
is intelligibly interested in the earliest development of the material pros- 
perity of the South. It is not by political agitation that this interest is to 
be promoted ; not under the hand of the Fanaticism that sows the wind 
that there are to grow up the fruits of industry. When the Southern 
people obtain political reassurance, and are able to lift the shield of the 
Constitution over their heads, they will be prepared for the fruitful works 
of peace ; they will be ready then for the large and steady enterprises of 
industry. All history shows and all reason argues that where a people are 
threatened with political changes, and live in uncertainty of the future, 
capital will be timid, enterprise will be content with make-shifts, and 
labour itself, give but an unsteady hand to the common implements of 
industry. 

He must be blind who does not perceive in the indications of Northern 
opinion and in the series of legislative measures consequent upon the war 
the sweeping and alarming tendency to Consolidation. It is not only the 
territorial unity of the States that is endangered by the fashionable dogma 
of the day, but the very cause of republican government itself. A war 
of opinions has ensued upon that of arms, far more dangerous to the 
American system of liberties than all the ordinances of Secession and all 
the armed hosts of the Confederates. 

The State Rights put in question by the propositions we have referred 
to in Congress, are not those involved in the issue of Secession, and, there- 
fore, decided against the South by the arbitration of the war. The Radi- 
cal programme, which we have noted above, points the illustration that 
the war did not sacrifice the whole body of State Rights, and that there 
was an important Tesiduum of them outside of the issue of Secession, which 
the people of the South were still entitled to assert, and to erect as new 
standards of party. It is precisely those rights of the States which a revo- 
Itionary party in Congress would deny, namely : to have their Constitu- 
tional rej)resentation, to decide their own obligations of debt, to have their 
OAvn codes of crimes and penalties, and to deal with their own domestic 



748 THE LOST CAUSE. 

concerns, that the Southern States claim have survived the war and are 
not subjects of surrender. 

And it is just here that the people of the South challenge that medium 
doctrine of State Eights professed by President Johnson to make the neces- 
sary explanation, and to distribute the results of the war between North 
and South. They do not look at the propositions in Congress as involving 
a mere partisan dispute ; they are not disposed to encounter them in a nay- 
row circle of disputation, and make a particular question of what is one 
grand issue. They regard them in the broad and serious sense of a revolu- 
tion against the Constitution ; a rebellion against all the written and tra- 
ditionary authority of American statesmanship ; a war quite as distinct as 
that of bayonets and more comprehensive in its results than the armed 
contest that has just closed. 

The following remarks of the President of the United States, do not 
magnify the occasion. They are historical : 

" The present is regarded as a most critical juncture in the affairs of the nation, 
scarcely less so than when an armed and organized force sought to overthrow the Gov- 
ernment, To attack and attempt the disruption of the Government by armed combina- 
tion and military force, is no more dangerous to the life of the nation than an attempt 
to revolutionize and undermine it by a disregard and destruction of the safeguards 
thrown around the liberties of the people in the Constitution, My stand has been taken, 
my course is marked ; I shall stand by and defend the Constitution against all who may 
attack it, from whatever quarter the attack may come. I shall take no step backward 
in this matter." 

An intelligent foreigner, making his observations at Washington at 
this time, would be puzzled to determine whether the Americans had a 
Government, or not. There are the names : The Executive, the Congress, 
the Judiciary ; but what is the executive question, what the congressional 
question, what the judicial queston, it appears impossible to decide. It is 
a remarkable fact that at Washington to-day, there is not a single well-de- 
fined department of political power ! There are the paraphernalia and 
decorations of a government ; an elaborate anarchy ; but the well-defined 
distribution of power and the order necessary to administer pubhc affairs 
appear to have been wholly lost, the charter of the government almost 
obliterated, and the Constitution overlaid with amendments, which, car- 
ried into eflPect, would hardly leave a vestige of the old instrument or a 
feature in which could be recognized the work of our forefathers, and the 
ancient creation of 1789. The controversy thus engendered is something 
more than a mere question of parties where there are points of coincidence 
between the contestants sufficient to confine opposition, and where both 
argue from the common premises of a written constitution. It is some- 
thing more than the temporary rack and excitement of those partisan 



PARTIES IN THE SOUTH. 74:9 

difficulties in which the American people have had so much experience 
of exaggerated dangers and foolisli alarms that they are likely to give them 
attention no longer, but as ephemeral sensations. It is something vastly 
more than tnc usual vapours of the political cauldron. When a Congress, 
representing not much more than a moiety of the American States, and, 
therefore, in the condition of an unconstitutional authority and factious 
parly, undertakes to absorb the power of the government ; to determine 
Executive questions by its close " Committee of Reconstruction ; " to put 
down the judiciary of the Southern States and by a Freedmen's Bureau, 
and other devices, erect an imperlum in im,perio in one part of the Union, 
it is ol)vious that the controversy is no narrow one of party, that it involves 
the traditions and spirit of the government, and goes to the ultimate con- 
test of constitutional liberty in America. Regarding these issues, the ques- 
tion comes fearfully to the mind : Has the past war merely laid the foun- 
dation of another f Tiie pregnant lesson of human experience is that few 
nations have had their first civil war without having their second ; and 
that the only guaranty against the repetition is to be found in the policy 
of wise and liberal concessions gracefully made by the successful party. 
And such reconciliations have been rarest in the republican form of gov- 
ennnent ; for, while generosity often resides in the breast of individual 
rulers, the history of mankind unhappily shows that it is a rare quality of 
political parties, where men act in feverish masses and under the domin- 
ion of peculiar passions. 

To the division of parties in the North — Radicals and Conservatives — 
there has grown up to some extent a correspondent difference of opinions 
among the Southern peo})le as to the consequences of the war. But only 
to a certain extent ; for the party in the South that, corresponding to the 
theory of the Northern Radicals, account themselves entirely at the mercy 
of a conquering power and taking everything ex gratia^ is only the detest- 
able faction of time-servers and the servile coterie that- attends all great 
changes in history, and courts the new authority whatever it may be. 

There is a better judgment already read by the Southern people of 
what the war has decided as against themselves. The last memorable 
remark of Ex-President Davis, when a fugitive, and before the doors of a 
prison closed upon him, was: "The princii)le for which we contended is 
bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another 
form." It was a wise and noble utterance, to be placed to the credit of 
an unfortunate ruler. And so, too, the man, marked above all others as 
the orator of the South — Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, standing before his 
countrymen, with his gray hairs and luminous eyes, has recently proclaimed 
•with trumpet-voice that all is not lost, that a great struggle of constitu- 
tional liberty yet rcmains, and that there are still missions of duty and 
glory for the South. 
47 



750 THE LOST CAUSE. 

The people of the South have surrendered in the war what the war has 
conquered ; but they cannot be expected to give up what was not involved 
i]i the war, and voluntarily abandon their political schools for the dogma 
of Consolidation. That dogma, the result has not properly imposed upon 
them ; it has not " conquered ideas." The issues of the war were practi- 
cal : the restoration of the Union and the abolition of slavery ; and only so 
far as political formulas were necessarily involved in these have they been 
afiected by the conclusion. The doctrine of secession Avas extinguished ; 
and yet there is something left more than the shadow of State Rights, if we 
may believe President Johnson, who has recently and officially used these 
terms, and. affirmed in them at least some substantial significance. 'Exaii if 
the States are to be firmly held in tlie Union ; even if the authority of the 
Union is to be held supreme in that respect, it does not follow that it is to 
be supreme in all other respects ; it does not follow that it is to legislate 
for the States ; it does not follow that it is " a national Government over 
the States and people alike." It is for the South to preserve every rem- 
nant of her rights, and even, though parting with the doctrine of secession, 
to beware of the extremity of surrendering State Eights in gross, and con- 
senting to a " National Government," with an unlimited power of legisla- 
tion that will consider the States as divided only by imaginary lines of 
geography, and see in its subjects only " the one people of all the States." 

But it is urged that the South should come to this understanding, so as 
to consolidate the peace of the country, and provide against a " war of 
ideas." Now a " war of ideas " is what the South wants and insists upon 
perpetrating. It may be a formidable phrase — "the war of ideas" — but 
after all, it is a harmless figure of rhetoric, and means only that we shall 
have parties in the country. We would not live in a country unless there 
were parties in it ; for where there is no such combat, there is no liberty, 
no animation, no topics, no interest of the twenty-four hours, no theatres 
of intellectual activity, no objects of ambition. We do not desire the va- 
cant unanimity of despotism. All that is left the South is "the war of 
ideas." She has thi-own down the sword to take up the weapons of argu- 
ment, not indeed under any banner of fanaticism, or to enforce a dogma, 
but simply to make the honourable conquest of reason and justice. In 
such a war there are noble victories to be won, memorable services to be 
performed, and grand results to be achieved. The Southern people stand 
hy their principles. There is no occasion for dogmatic assertion, or fanati- 
cal declamation, or inflammatory discourse as long as they have a text on 
which they can make a sober exposition of their rights, and claim the ver- 
dict of the intelligent. 

Outside the domain of party politics, the war has left another consider- 
ation for the people of the South. It is a remarkable fact that States re- 
duced by war are apt to experience the extinction of their literature, the 



DUTY AND HOPE OF THE SOUTH. 751 

decay ol mind, and the loss of their distinctive forms of thought. Nor is 
Buch a condition inconsistent with a gross material prosperity that often 
grows upon the bloody crust of war. "When Greece fell under the Eoman 
yoke, she experienced a prosperity she had never known before. It was 
an era rank with wealth and material improvement. But her literature 
became extinct or emasculated ; the distinctive forms of her art disap- 
peared ; and her mind, once the peerless light of the world, waned into an 
obscurity from which it never emerged. 

It is to be feared that in the present condition of the Southern States, 
losses will be experienced greater than the immediate inflictions of fire and 
sword. Tlie danger is that they will lose their literature, their former 
habits of thought, their intellectual self-asssertion, while they are too intent 
upon recovering the mere material prosperity, ravaged and impaired by 
the war. Tliere are certain coarse advisers who tell the Southern people 
that the great ends of their lives now are to repair their stock of national 
wealth ; to bring in ITorthern capital and labour ; to build mills and fac- 
tories and hotels and gilded caravansaries ; and to make themselves rivals 
in the clattering and garish enterprise of the North. This advice has its 
proper place. But there are higher objects than the Yankee magna hona 
of money and display, and loftier aspirations than the civilization of mate- 
rial things. In the life of nations, as in that of the individual, there is some- 
thing better than pelf, and the coarse prosperity of dollars and cents. The 
lacerated, but proud and ambitious heart of the South will scarcely respond 
to the mean aspiration of the recusant Governor of South Carolina — Mr, 
Orr : " I am tired of South Carolina as she was. I court for her the ma- 
terial prosperity of New England. I would have her acres teem with life 
and vigour and intelligence, as do those of Massachusetts." 

There are time-servers in every cause ; there are men who fill their 
bellies wnth husks, and turn on their faces and die ; but there are others 
who, in the midst of public calamities, and in their own scanty personal 
fortune, leave behind them the memoiy of noble deeds, and a deathless 
heritage of glory. 

Defeat has not made " all our sacred things profane." The war has 
left the South its own memories, its own heroes, its own tears, its own 
dead. Under these traditions, sons will grow to manhood, and lessons 
sink deep that are learned from the lips of widowed mothers. 

It would be immeasurably the worst consequence of defeat in this war 
that the South should lose its moral and intellectual distinctiveness as a 
people, and cease to assert its well-known superiourity in civilization, in 
political scholarship, and in all the standards of individual character over 
the people of the North. That superiourity has been recognized by every 
foreign observer, and by the intelligent everywhere ; for it is the South 
that in the past produced four-fifths of the political literature of America, 



752 THE LOST CAUSE. 

and presented in its public men that list of American names best known 
in the Christian world. That superiourity the war has not conquered or 
lowered ; and the South will do right to claim and to cherish it. 

The war has not swallowed up everything. There are great interests 
which stand out of the pale of the contest, which it is for the South still to 
cultivate and maintain. She must submit fairly and truthfully to what 
the war has properly decided. ^' But the war properly decided only what 
was put in issue : the restoration of the Union and the excision of slavery ;i^ 
and to these two conditions the South submits. Bnt^the war did not de- 
cide negro equality ; it did not decide negro suffrage ; it did not decido 
State Rights, although it might have exploded their abuse ; it did not de- 
cide the orthodoxy of the Democratic party ; it did not decide the right of 
a people to show dignity in misfortune, and to maintain self-respect in the 
face of adversity. And these things which the war did not decide, the 
Southern people will still cling to, still claim, and still assert in them their 
rights and views. 



CHAPTEK XLV. 

(Sxipplementary.) 

THE NEGRO QUESTION. — RADICAL EXPERIMENT WITH THE NEGRO. — LESSONS OP LIBERIA, ETC. — THU 
NEW POSITION AND NEW CAUSE OP THE SOUTH. 

APPENDIX. — CHARACTER AND SERVICES OP PRESIDENT DAVIS. 

Nothing could be more false and- absurd than the popular felicitation 
that the negro question was settled^ ,and terminated by the war, and that 
in its great convulsion of arras had happily expired a topic that had former- 
ly occupied three fourths of the political history of America, and had made 
it barren of higher and better considerations. The fact becomes apparent, 
and at last is obvious, that the war, instead of quieting the question of the 
negro, has really given it a larger development and a new significance, 
eviscerating the whole controversy, and taking up an additional breadth of 
discussion. The party that has abolished the so-called "slavery" of the 
South cannot stop at that. conclusion ; it is irresistibly impelled by its own 
logic, which assumes that the negro is the equivalent of the white man in 
a black ski^ to demand for him the right and privileges of citizenship, 
and, regarding his former condition of servitude as an injustice and 
outrage, to constitute him not only the equal of the white citizen, but to 
conciliate him with rewards, and make him the object of a peculiar soli- 
citude. This is the logical necessity of the Kadicals of the North ; and it 
is under the impulses of this necessity, rather than, as the South would 
believe, from the mere rage and wantonness of party, that there have been 
produced such legislation as the Civil Rights Bill, additions to the authority 
of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the conditions of Negro Suffrage, which 
have recently been subscribed to the retrocession of the Southern States to 
the Union. These are not the accidents of faction. They are an extension 
of party lines on which the South has yet the opportunity of contest, and 
on which she may summon her people for the trial of new hopes. 

Candid and intelligent men in the South recognize the abolition of 
slavery, and appreciate the logical virtue of the conclusion of the Radical 
party as to the enfranchisement of the negro, as drawn from their dogma 
of the equality of races ; but recognizing this abolition only as the result of 
force, and not implying the premise of negro equality, but indignantly 
and steadily rejecting this dogma, they are in a position, while accepting 
the decisions of the war, yet to contest the entire series of measures to 



754: THE LOST CAUSE. 

endow the negro, Africanize the South, and give our society there to the 
alternative of mongreiism or utter ruin. Here is the new field of party con- 
troversy to which the South may bring her ingenious minds, and where she 
may yet find a remnant of hope. The Radical party is now making an 
experiment with the negro ; it may eveu be policy in the South for a time 
to assist that experiment, to enlarge its sphere, and to give it all the facili- 
ties it demands ; for her true hope is that that experiment will recoil upon 
itself, and that, in the period of reaction likely to ensue, the negro will be 
reduced from his false importance, and society be re-established on some 
principles assimilating the happy experiences of the former order, and 
inspired by the yet vital traditions of tlie past. 

Tiie Radical experiment with the negro invites a much larger considera- 
tion than we can give it in these closing pages. For his former condition 
of servitude there were two styles of argument popular in the South : the 
one a priori, proceeding from cause to effect, on the assumption of the 
natural inferiourity of the African ; the other d posteriori, from effect to 
cause, exhibiting the happy and orderly condition of so-called " slavery," 
and hence drawing its justification and displaying its virtues. This 
latter argument has obtained new force from the contrasts of to-day. Now, 
it is found that to maintain the new condition of the negro the application 
of a large external force, indeed a standing army of seventy thousand men, 
is necessary ; while, reverting to the past, we find that the institution of 
" slavery" was maintained without a single armed man, without even a 
system of paid police, without any measure or manner of external force 
whatever ; and the conclusion is irresistible that an institution that thus 
kept itself, so to speak, without violent incidents, must have been in power- 
ful harmony with the laws of nature. But this argument d posteriori 
becomes yet stronger in view of the war. During four years of strife and 
convulsion, when the negro was appealed to by all the arts of the enemy, 
and when Northern men expected that at the first signal of contest, the 
■whole black population would be in arms, and would rush at every hazard 
to their standard, the institution of "slavery" remained quiet and secure, 
without even one incident of insurrection, without the exhibition of the 
least force to contain it, without, indeed, the detail of a single soldier to 
guard its existence or to enforce its routine. Until the last act of the war 
the negroes in mass adhered to the cause of their masters ; and it was only 
when they were brought in actual contact with the enemy, and persuasions 
and deceptions, or even force were practised upon them, that they forsook 
their natural and habitual allegiance. Generally they retreated from the 
presence of the Northern armies, back into the interiour, at the command of 
persons who were unable to enforce obedience if it had not been volun- 
tarily rendered. They followed their masters to the field, without deser- 



THE LOST CAUSE. 755 

tion, attended them with bravery, and were proud of the service. They 
worked cheerfully npon tlie fortifications and eartliworks in siglit of the 
enemy, and left monuments of their labour at Richmond, Yicksburg, and 
other places of historic siege. They kept to the duties of the farm and 
plantation when all police system was at an end, and maintained obedience, 
docility, and respect. Truly, to these peoi)le the best of our Southern 
patriots owe a gratitude which it will always be just and noble for them 
to acknowledge. 

A European journal, referring to the demand of a party in America for 
sujffrage for the negro, makes the acute remark that that party which pre 
fers this demand unconsciously makes the highest tribute that has yet 
been rendered to " slavery " in the Southern States, implying that it has 
educated the negro to the point where he is capable of using this political 
privilege. This single remark rifts a whole history of speculation, and lets 
in a flood of light upon the institution of " slavery." It is remarkable that 
an argument so ingenious and incisive has not been reproduced in Ameri- 
can publications, and been used in some late contests of party. It is neat, 
suggestive, and unanswerable. It is true that miscalled " slavery " has 
been the education of the negro — that it has given him a certain measure 
or order of civilization ; and the practical danger is that what is termed 
" emancipation" will remove him from the influences where he is only 
capable of improvement, and destroy the little of civilization he has. 
Those who understand the negro know the peculiar nature and precise 
value of this civilization. It is essentially an imitative one ; it has no root 
in itself, and no faculty of advancing bej'ond the relations which produce 
it. Doctor Van Evrie, a gentleman who has written on Southern subjects 
with great power and felicity, thus distinguishes the intellectual condition 
of the negro : " The blank, the feeble mental capacity and readiness of his 
nature to imitate the habits, bodily or mental, of the superiour race, adapts 
the negro to his subordinate social position, and the purposes to which 
Providence has assigned him. The childlike intellect does not resist the 
strong and enduring mental energies of the Caucasian ; its first impressions 
pass away in a few years, while its imitative capacities sit so gracefully on 
the negro nature that multitudes of ignorant people confound the real with 
the borrowed, and actually suppose the ' smart ' negroes to be met with 
occasionally at the North are examples of native capacity." 

Experiments, satisfactory to all but fanatical minds, have shown that the 
intelligence of the negro is borrowed and short-lived, and that removed 
from those relations as a subordinate, where he has a constant tendency to 
copy the white man (as in the condition of servitude), or having those 
relations supplanted by a new condition in which he is put into open and 
active competition with the Caucasian, he declines in mental power, and 



756 THE LOST CAUSE. 

tends to wliat appears to be his normal condition of barbarism. Thus 
negroes who had lived in the South, and been carried thence to Africa, 
have lost wliat they acquired hei*e about as rapidly as tliey had parted 
with their original Africanism. It is notorious that the emigrants for 
Liberia were generally taken from the most advanced and cultivated class 
of our negroes who had long the benefits of civilization before them ; an 
influential element of mulatto blood was infused into the stock ; yet a few 
years have been sufficient to explode the fancy of a republic of civilized 
negroes, and to show what little distinctions are really to be taken between 
the black compatriots of America, and those barbarians whom Mungo Park 
describes, and Livingstone, Barth, and others exhibit in their naked 
deformity. 

We distrust the whole Northern scheme of educatino^ and civilizinor the 
negro by the present popular means of Freedmen's Bureaux, schools, and 
emissaries, because j)recisely the same agencies have been used by the 
Christian Missions and Colonization Societies for more than one generation 
of men, without visible or appreciable effect. It is merely the repetition 
of an old and exploded theory. All these amiable adventures in the 
civilization of the negro have been lamentable failures. The experiment 
has been tried in the most favourable and exceptional circumstances in the 
case of Liberia. The boundaries of this country, liaving been extended by 
successive treaties with about forty tribes, embrace seven hundred miles of 
sea-coast. Within those limits about two hundred thousand natives are 
supposed to reside, who are amenable to the laws of the Liberian Govern- 
ment. Here the negro colonist from America was invited by the most 
tempting and liberal offers. To every one of them desirous of a residence 
in Africa the Colonization Society proffered a gratuitous passage thither, 
with provisions, medical aid, and a shelter for six months. It also pre- 
sented him a title, in fee simple, to five acres of land, with an additional 
quantity for each member of his family. The agricultural resources of 
the country are unbounded, and the staples, which are cotton, sugar, coffee, 
indigo, etc., those to which the labour of the negro has been considered 
especially adapted. The quality of these staples has been cited by the 
price they bring in the United States market ; and recent authorities have 
been cited to show that the Messurado cotton is fully equal to that of our 
own American uplands. 

How have these resources been developed ? How has the negro thrived 
in this abundance of agricultural wealth, and under the accumulation of 
moral influences in the scheme of the Colonization Society ? The results 
show his inability to improve, except where in contact with the white man 
as his superiour ; his incapacity for labour, except when compelled ; and the 
small fruits of that labour, except when employed and directed by a whit© 



. THE LOST CAUSE. 757 

master. Whatever may be the colour of interested reports, we have the 
unavoidable facts that Liberia is comparatively unknown as an agricultural 
country ; that the negro is disinclined to till the laud ; and that its only 
importance is that of a trading post through which the colonist supplies the 
natives of the interiour with gewgaws, and receives in return palm-oil, ivory, 
canewood, etc. 

It may be some time before the experiment of negro citizenship in 
America develops all the results that statesmanship foresees and humanity 
apprehends. But the tendency is already alarming, and the foreshadow of 
the worst events is already visible on the path of the future. "We hold 
that emancipation has struck down what all experience has proved the true 
system of the civilization of the negro, and that, in removing him from 
those influences and relations of servitude in which he acquired his present 
wonderful enlightenment, it has put him on the road to barbarism and 
ruin. It has shut him out of the proper school of his civilization. It has 
remitted his labour to the heartless dominion of capital. The system of negro 
tenants has already proved a failure ; and the unhappy black already finds 
that he has to struggle much harder for a livelihood against competition 
new to him, than when under the direction of a master bound to him by 
law, domestic affection, and self-interest. It has been remarked that the 
negro, confined to a single operation under the direction and control of the 
white man, is often the best labourer in the world. But left to himself, he 
has no system, no order, no self-control, no administrative talent what- 
ever ; and at the same time the exactions of livelihood have become more 
stringent and imperious. To live at all the negroes in the South have now 
to labour ten hours a day. Yet the ten hours' labour as freedmen does not 
make them so secure and comfortable as did the three hours' labour as 
slaves. 

We have already some recent statistics and information of the condition 
of the negro in the false career on which the Radical party has forced him, 
calculated to wound and startle the sensibilities of a true humanity. The 
newspapers have already incidentally told us more than once of occurrences 
in some parts of the South of old practices of African superstition and 
Fetich observances among the negroes, even in the vicinity of the Freed- 
men's Bureau. The mortality among these unhappy people is another sub- 
ject of fearful curiosity which cannot be long suppressed. In statistics, 
recently compiled and published, it is plainly shown that the negro is not 
equal to the burdens of his new condition. In the recent war, disease 
claimed the black soldier as his own, and he perished suddenly. Only 
2,997 negroes died in action and of wounds, while 26,301 fell victims to 
disease ! Here is a huge disproportion — the deaths in action and by 
wounds standing to those by disease in the ratio of one to eight. Among 



758 THE LOST CAUSE. 

whites the ratio is onlj'' one to two. Not only in war has the negro shown 
liis vast incapacity to meet and endure tlie harassing responsibilities of 
life, but in peace he sinks beneath the ordinary trials of the world. A few, 
since the date of emancipation, have continued their accustomed rounds of 
labour ; but truth compels us to say that the larger number are fitful, lazy, 
and wholly unreliable for any kind of service to themselves or others. 
Crime and sickness and snflt'ering abound among them. Insufficient or 
unwholesome food, imperfect shelter, the habit of living in crowds in 
small apartments, and vagabondism in every form and shape, induce 
disease, and they die, especially in the cities and towns, by thousands. The 
appalling fact recently appeared in a careful article in the Kew York 
Joxirnal of Commerce^ — one of the most candid and intelligent of American 
newspapers, — that more than one fourth of the total negro population of 
the South had perished since the commencement of the war. A pheno- 
menon of mortality so unusual and startling can only be ascribed to the 
late extraordinary change in the negro's condition, and cannot be viewed 
apart from it.* 

What is to be the ultimate ftite of this unfortunate race is involved, 
under the providence of God, in the fearful and pregnant experiment now 
being conducted by the Radical party of the North ? It is obvious to 
reflection that that experiment involves also the interests of the white 
society placed in new and violent relations with the negro, and the most 
important concerns of the whole government and civilization of America. 
That experiment may progress some years longer; it is likely to be 
attended by an active and constant controversy. It is in that controversy 
that we exhort the South to keep her temper and dignity, and encourage 
her to hope for some recovery of rights and interests which the sword did 
not arbitrate, and which are yet subjects of manly contest. The Radical 

* The author of this interesting statistic — understood to be one of the editors of the Journal of 
Commerce, who has recently been visiting the South — writes: "The diminution of the negro 
population is vast, and for the present is continuous. It is unnecessary to assign the causes : 
they are manifest enough. To the inquiry made of Southern gentlemen and ladies in all parts of 
the South, ' IIow do the negro mothers take care of their young children ? ' the answer was, 
almost invariably, ' They would rather have them die than live.' To some extent, also, the fathers 
neglect their families. It is a new thing for a negro to have to apply his earnings to the support 
of children, or to the payment of physicians, or the purchase of medicine. Hence, when the freed- 
man receives his wages, he is tempted to spend it on his own comfort or luxury. Few of them 
understand the idea of saving for a ' wet day.' We saw a very respectable and intelligent negro 
who, while a slave, had saved money, earned in overwork, to the amount of $600. Within two 
years past he had spent it ail in supporting his family, and said that now he had hard work to 
keep body and soul together. It is plain enough that employers will find the free system far 
cheaper than the slave system ; but whether the labouring class can stand poverty and its ills, to 
which they never have been accustomed, is another question, and one in which the future of the 
South is very deeply involved." 



THE LOST CAUSE. 759 

experiment with the negro is being steadily ■worked to its logical results ; 
but it is this very proof and exhibition of results which we firmly believe 
will be fatal to it, and inaugurate the period of reaction. 

The South has lost great interests in the war ; but she has yet greater 
concerns in the future. The contest with political fanaticism and sectional 
violence is not yet ended ; and in the issues of party made since the war the 
South finds herself this time in distinct and firm alliance with a party in 
the Korth, in sympathy with the educated reason of the world, and with all 
human instincts in her favour, defending the doctrine of the saperiourity of 
races, and maintaining the broad and noble interests of the white man's 
government in America. She has lost the cause of independence for which 
she most ostensibly struggled in the war ; but it may be, in the hidden 
providence of God, that she was defeated in an efibrt to withdraw from the 
Union to find alliance and comfort in a more important political career, 
and that her " lost cause " may be but the introduction to a larger contest. 



APPENDIX. 



CHABACTEB AND SEKVICES OF PRESIDENT DAVIS. 

Seepages 90 and 91. — The estimate made here of the character of the 
President of the Confederacy has been regarded in some quarters of the 
South' as harsh and unjust; and occasion has been made of it to charge 
tlie author with some unworthy prejudices. 

He is aware that since Mr. Davis has been a prisoner of war, the 
extremity of hh sufferings and the dignity of his behaviour have entitled 
him to much of the sympathy of his countrymen and the admiration of the 
world. Indeed, the author ventures to say that his own pen, in various 
ways, has paid more tributes to his admirable conduct as a prisoner than 
that of any other Southern writer. He has recognized in the champion of 
" The Lost Cause " many of the traits of antique heroism; he has honoured 
his scholarship, his enthusiasm, his devotion ; but he has perceived in him, 
as in most men, a mixed character, and in balancing his qualities for 
liistory, he has refused to be blinded by brilliant personal accomplishments, 
and has simply given his defects as a ruler along with his virtues aud 
graces as a man. 

Let the j ust reader examine the pages referred to in this note, and say 
truly if they contain a colour of prejudice or temper. Is this estimate of the 
ex-President of the Confederacy " abuse," as some newspapers would have 
it? Is it not rather the calm, severe judgment of liistory that thus distri- 
butes the character of the man ? Mr. Davis's character was to the mind of 
the author a mixed one ; and, in contemplating it, he has been forcibly 
reminded of Gibbon's description of the scholarly, elegant, but weak and 
uxorious Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes. Let the candid student 
compare the two pictures. The author has attempted to show in "The Lost 
Cause " that Mr. Davis was unfit as a ruler ; his convictions on the point are 
strong ; and he will die in the belief that the political affair at Eichmond 
was the most slattern thing that ever went by the name of " government " 
in the history of the civilized world. The great fact stares the historian in 
the face that the entire political device of the Confederacy was a failure in 



APPENDIX 761 

every part ; and the 'question comes, where is the full explanation of this to 
be found, unless in the assumption of the unfitness of its rulers ? 

Responsibility must rest somewhere in history, where a certain result is 
clearly not an accident or misadventure, but must have come from a well- 
defined cause ; and that cause ultimately and logically rests in tlie head of 
the government. 

Jefferson Davis cannot escape the syllogism that has been applied to 
every public ruler since the world began. However he may be plastered 
with "glittering generalities;" however paltry publications may consult 
the passions of the hour; however newspapers made up of dish-water and 
the paste-pot may deprecate the vigorous inquiries of history, and counsel 
the suppression of unpleasant tacts; however partisans may dross their 
leaders in the colour of the rose, the question comes at last : How are those 
failures of the Confederacy, which are accounted errors, and not mis- 
fortunes, to be ascribed, if not to the folly of rulers ? Mr. Davis was 
supreme in his administration, and singularly unembarrassed in directing and 
controlling public affairs. There was no question of disconcerted authority. 
For the major part of his administration he had a servile Congress, a Cabi- 
net of dummies, and a people devoted to his person. There may be 
repeated with emphasis what the author has written in his book : "The dis- 
affection in the Confederacy that was original, that was purely political, 
that did not proceed from some particular grievance of the administration 
in Richmond, was utterly inconsiderable, and was perhaps less than was 
ever known in any great popular commotion in the history of the world" 
(p. 653). 

In these circumstances, the responsibility of President Davis was well 
defined, and, taken along with his autocracy, was almost exclusive. But it is 
not necessary to insist upon this rigidity of construction. The author has 
simply sought to place Mr. Davis in his true logical position as President of 
the Southern Confederacy. He has not been content to rest* on secondary 
causes, or disposed to enter the province of hypothesis and over-refinements; 
and he has done nothing more than apply to Mr. Davis's four years of Pre- 
sidential life the same rule of responsibility that is ftimiliar in all history, 
and has been applied to ever}'- administration of public affairs in the annals 
of America. 

Of the purely personal character of Mr. Davis the author has written 
more than once with lively admiration, enumerating many virtues and 
accomplishments of the man. His history of the war did not properly 
extend to the period of Mr. Davis's imprisonment, where he has done so 
much by his position as a vicarious sufferer for the people of the South, 
and a display of extraordinary virtues to relieve the censure of the past, 
and to elevate his name in the new character as a martyr. But the author 



762 APPENDIX. 

may take occasion here to remark on this last and best exhibition of Mr. 
Davis's character, and declare that his " prison-life" has been the noblest 
part of his career. As a prisoner he has suffered with the most remarkable 
and constant dignity ; there have been no weak complaints, no unmanly 
petitions, no unworthy conversations with those in authority over him. He 
has obtained a new title to the admiration of friends, and from his enemies 
the tribute that is always readily paid to the man who is truly great in the 
last misfortune of his life. There is indeed good reason to believe that 
these enemies, having curiously resorted to a device of bail, after a silence 
and mystery of more than two years, hesitate to place the distinguished 
prisoner on his trial for fear that he would make there one of the most 
imposing figures of the age, and that, standing at the bar with his perfect 
dignity and great scholarship, pleading for a " lost cause," he would make 
an appeal to the justice and sensibilities of the world whicli they are not 
willing to risk. 



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